I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didnt know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didnt know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasnt really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi