> The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't have to die.
I absolutely agree with that and the fact that fighting death is so low on social priorities is something that boggles my mind. However even if we dropped everything and started working on it, many of us will still die. I am regularly afraid, in the back of my head, that I'll go down young because of some cancer. Or that my loved ones will. I need to be able to handle this, both dying and dealing with the dying. That's why I'm grateful for this article. It has solid points about communication.
As I said - it's not either/or. Many - maybe all - of us will die, but this is not an excuse for not working on curing death.