Sometimes cancer is relatively asymptomatic until well along, people don’t get checkups (I’m bad about that myself), moderate symptoms are ignored or denied, etc. On the other hand, VERY often, when someone has a long battle with cancer, they are getting treatments or other care. Humans are typically quite bad about assuming what they’ve seen around them in the physical world the last few years is the norm* - and great advancements in extending useful life with cancer have been made in the last few decades. When I was young, I can remember several instances of people going down quickly to cancer, including my much loved maternal grandfather. His cancer had metastasized before he was diagnosed with a big lump above (but not on) his lung.)
*A top example is climate. We are in an atypical benign period, considering the long term average over the last 40 million years or so. As one wag put it: “ ‘Normal’ is Chicago under a mile of ice.” To a young or puny mind, our present climate is “how it should be.”
(Going back to the age(s) of the dinosaurs, the Earth was much more “life friendly” than it is now. If you didn’t get eaten yourself, that is, but then, a lot of the present friendliness to humans is a function of humans acquiring the skills to make weapons, fire, advanced shelter, etc..)
In the geologic sense, 10,000 years is a quite brief period...
In everyday(?) life, it’s all a matter of perspective: When I was young, I thought an hour sometimes seemed an eternity. At my age now, an hour often goes by before I get my head turned to check a clock... :-(
Nice perspective.