Beats the slow lingering death that Cancer patients normally suffer.
One of my FR friends just passed last week after a year of fighting lung cancer. Her niece fought a valiant battle for over 2 years with surgery/chemo/radiation. Her niece just reached a point where the cancer was outrunning any progress with treatment. Yet another friend from my high school class has been fighting pancreatic cancer for a year. Chemo/radiation achieved enough success to permit a "Whipple procedure" to surgically remove the tumor. He is making a painful recovery from the surgery now. I've seen no updates from his wife for 2 weeks. That's not encouraging.