5

Your Memories Suddenly Become Very Vivid

When you're facing death, you can become a weird kind of time traveler, getting unstuck in your own life like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five. You'll be at the grocery store and get incredibly vivid memories, full of weird details, like the way the parking lot at your first job would stink when it rained, or that funny little harmonica noise your cat used to make when he'd snore. The past feels so tangible, so immediate. It's like you went to middle school this morning and high school in the afternoon, and maybe you were 30 at lunch. That was my experience, anyway.

I felt compelled to reach out to people I hadn't seen for years, including some I'd nearly forgotten about -- ex-friends who'd wronged me, people I never imagined I'd want to speak to again. Now that I was like Doctor Manhattan (without the superpowers, abs, or disconcerting blue dong) and could see my whole life at once, the times when ex-girlfriends cheated on me or some guy split town owing me money didn't really seem more significant than all the good times we'd shared.

4

It Puts A Different Face On Depression

My depression had always come with a huge side order of guilt. There was this nasty little voice in my brain demanding to know how I could dare to be depressed about the lousy state of my love life or career when other people had it so much worse, which of course just compounded the depression. But when I got cancer, that finally shut that nasty little voice up ... and ultimately showed me how wrong it was.

I remember one rough day during my treatment. I was driving home in awful traffic and got stuck at an intersection. A barefoot old homeless guy was shuffling across the street in front of me, and I felt a wave of that familiar crushing guilt, making me slump behind my steering wheel. "God, how can I even complain when some poor guy like that has it so much worse?" But this was quickly followed with "I have terminal cancer! I absolutely have a right to complain!"

I mean, if you asked that guy whether he wanted to trade lives, it's not unlikely he would have said no. He didn't have a roof over his head, but at least he wasn't dying of freaking cancer. In that moment, I was stunned to realize I couldn't think of anybody who had it inarguably worse than I did. Would a guy rotting away in prison really want to trade lives with someone just months away from a painful death?

3

You Can Play the Cancer Card To Get Stuff (And Get Out Of Stuff)

You know those news stories about scummy people who lie about having cancer so they can get attention, gifts, etc.? Well, when you've got cancer, you don't have to lie! When you ask people to do stuff, they'll often say yes, because nobody wants to disappoint the Cancer Guy. Sometimes you don't even have to ask.

Let's say you can't pay your rent. Maybe you're too sick to work, or maybe you were just never great at paying rent even in times of perfect health. Well, if your landlord finds out you have cancer, they may not only ease up a bit, but also feel guilty enough to bring you banana bread. (Another cancer perk: so much free banana bread.) You get the kind of slack that, in a perfect world, everyone would get all the time. And all it takes is the looming specter of death.

Sometimes your ol' buddy the Big C can get you out of jams too. Like, maybe you've got some social obligation and you don't wanna go. Just say you're not feeling well (and it won't be a lie), and not only will nobody think badly of you, but maybe they'll all spend the evening talking about how noble and brave you are.

2

Doctors Actually Pay Attention To You

Have you ever spent a really long night waiting on some sticky bench in the emergency room, going crazy from pain and wondering if you'll ever be seen? Well, that was basically my pre-cancer 20s.

Prior to my maybe-terminal diagnosis, I'd already had years of weird health problems, and I'd gotten used to feeling kind of ignored by doctors. They'd see me once, indifferently prescribe some antibiotics (which rarely worked), and tell me to come back in a few months. If they ever deigned to order an actual test, I'd have to wait forever for my insurance to approve it, and lord only knew when I'd finally see the results. Few things were ever definitively diagnosed, and even fewer were ever cured.

But then I got cancer and everything changed overnight. Tests were happening immediately, and sometimes the results were waiting for me when I got home. Doctors had always struck me as kind of aloof, chilly people (when they weren't outright assholes), but now they were actually trying to make a human connection with me and show they cared. Sometimes they were so nice that it almost felt kind of weird. Seriously, they did everything but sing the "Friend Like Me" number from Aladdin.

1

You Regret All Of The Time You've Wasted

I know this sounds like the worst Hallmark TV movie cliche, but yeah, this happens. When I thought I was terminal, I had to face all my deathbed regrets a few decades ahead of schedule. I learned stuff about my life it probably would have taken years of therapy to figure out otherwise because, well, I was out of time. It was just, boom, this matters, boom, this doesn't.

Maybe some people want to spend their final days traveling the globe, banging squads of hookers and all of that "blaze of glory" stuff, but I didn't see the point in making new memories when I wasn't going to be around to remember them. I only cared about the life I'd already lived, and I felt like I hadn't spent enough of it living. I grieved for all the time I'd wasted, all of the AV Club interviews I'd read with people who starred in shows I'd never even watched, all the hours I'd spent arguing about Star Wars on message boards. Things I didn't even really enjoy.