Then my mom passed away a few years later, due to lung cancer -- caused in part by her sister who was allowed to smoke like a chimney, even in the hospital, because she was at stage 4. My dad was the primary care giver for my mom.
My dad recently passed away in ICU, when I had to make the hard choice to remove the ventilator instead of doing a tracheotomy, because everyone in the family knew that the last thing he wanted in life was to die in a nursing home. And if we had them do a tracheotomy, he would never be able to go home again. He never woke up, and passed within an hour of removing the ventilator. He was 74.
I've had thyroid cancer, which was surgically removed and then I had radioactive iodine therapy afterward. I'll be on synthetic thyroid replacement medication for the rest of my life.
I don't think I have much illusion about what is around the corner for me. I'm just trying to put it off for as long as I can, try to get some good work done in the time I have left, and enjoy spending as much time as I can with my wife and what is left of the family.
Seriously? Every human being on Earth over a toddler's age is totally aware of impending death. To date nobody has ever lived forever. The only question, for every human being, cancer or no, is how many years you get before you eventually die.
Modern man just makes my head shake in disbelief sometimes...
Wrong.
IMHO, most people live on autopilot with some sense of ignoring the reality of death. I think this decision we often tend to label as "feeling we are invincible". There's some underlying feeling that death is so far off that it almost doesn't seem real to us. Yes, intellectually, in a cold, logical sense the fact that we die is known to the majority of humanity. But I think that is irrelevant to the post to which you replied.
By total awareness of impending death, I believe the parent post was clearly implying that the author has had the gravity of the reality of death thrust upon them and made real to them in a way that few of us experience or choose to dwell on.
Once you are aware your time alive has been essentially quantified- in much more stark terms than "eventually", especially when the time remaining is rather short- I believe this is likely a unique psychological/emotional experience, one that is difficult to understand without ones self being put in that position.