ABSTRACT
However, by the very nature of their physical and spiritual make-up, each person is unique, and certainly does not live their life according to a chart. Sometimes we see a patient who we feel fairly certain will die quite quickly, and we are surprised when they carry on living beyond expectation. On the other hand, we also see those who we feel have a fairly good prognosis, and they suddenly die. With any life-limiting illness, complications can arise that can have a quite sudden fatal outcome, such as embolism (blood clot) or sudden haemorrhage. However, apart from such life-destroying complications, what never fails to amaze me, even now, is how often the way in which people deal with their illness affects their outcome. In general, patients who ‘choose’ to accept what is happening to them as much as possible, and who
studies below describe three very different scenarios.
