For those of us middle-aged, read on.

[staceysue]

I find it easy to say now that I'm not scared of dying, but I'm not at all confident that I wouldn't be scared in extremis.

I can definitely relate to that! I was all about saying I wasn't afraid of dying, feeling so calm and cool about the whole issue, then they found tumors on my ovaries. Actually - it was more like I had little ovaries on my tumors, the tumors were so huge. My cancer markers were elevated and there was a 50% chance it was advanced ovarian cancer.

When I walked under the sign that said "Oncology" into the doctor's office, I lost it. I was sobbing so hard I couldn't talk during the entire appointment. Thank God the oncologist said "I just happen to have time to operate tomorrow," because if I'd had to wait any longer I don't know what would have happened. I was up all night imagining how my husband and son would cope when I was gone. I sobbed until I was under anesthesia, woke up sobbing, and didn't stop until the doctor said "No cancer." I made them repeat it about 10 times. "No cancer? Is that what you said? Tell me again." I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

I'm a nurse, and I've never seen any patient react as dramatically as I did. Yeah - I'm pretty much all talk and no walk on the "I'm OK with dying" thing.