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JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1998 90(24):1860-1861; doi:10.1093/jnci/90.24.1860
© 1998 by Oxford University Press
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Days, Weeks, or Months: When to Say How Long?

Everyone dreads it, and for Gregory White Smith it happened at the Mayo Clinic during the holidays in 1986. The rare, inoperable tumor lodged in his brain was killing him, said his oncologist. He wouldn't live to see the following spring, let alone another Christmas.


"It was such a blindside, and it put me in a position I never expected to find myself in," Smith said recently. "It was a lot like that 60 Minutes watch. I could hear the ticking."

As it turned out, Smith wasn't running out of time so dramatically. He's seen every holiday since that diagnosis. But during the winter of 1986, he didn't know that. After being given a death sentence, Smith retreated to his hotel room and binged on pastries and bad TV.

"It was part denial, part disbelief, part defiance, part anger," he said. . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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