How Doctors Die @ The Saturday Evening Post
TL;DR quietly and by themselves with as little hospital involvement as possible
Several years ago, my older cousin Torch (born at home by the light of
a flashlight—or torch) had a seizure that turned out to be the result of
lung cancer that had gone to his brain. I arranged for him to see
various specialists, and we learned that with aggressive treatment of
his condition, including three to five hospital visits a week for
chemotherapy, he would live perhaps four months. Ultimately, Torch
decided against any treatment and simply took pills for brain swelling.
He moved in with me.
We spent the next eight months doing a bunch of things that he enjoyed,
having fun together like we hadn’t had in decades. We went to
Disneyland, his first time. We hung out at home. Torch was a sports nut,
and he was very happy to watch sports and eat my cooking. He even gained
a bit of weight, eating his favorite foods rather than hospital foods.
He had no serious pain, and he remained high-spirited. One day, he
didn’t wake up. He spent the next three days in a coma-like sleep and
then died. The cost of his medical care for those eight months, for the
one drug he was taking, was about $20.