He was faced with the choice of:
roll a D20, if you don't get 20 roll again to see how many years you live.
Or
Roll a D8 to see how many years you live.
He chose the D8 and then tried the first choice when he realized he had rolled a 3
roll a D20, if you don't get 20 roll again to see how many years you live.
Or
Roll a D8 to see how many years you live.
He chose the D8 and then tried the first choice when he realized he had rolled a 3
Those are our odds. His odds, considering his vast wealthy, would be potentially better (better doctors, hospitals, etc). So in other words he chose a the best high-risk naturopath approach over the best low-risk surgical approach. He found the best woo merchants out there and he paid for it with his life. I'm not sure why so many are defending him. Yes, he made consumer goods slightly better than his competition, but he's still human and made a pretty terrible mistake. If anything, we should publicize this so other people don't make this mistake.
Having seen that and if I knew that I had a cancer which was very unlikely to be cured I would definitely consider not going through with the surgery. Better to die quickly than live in constant pain for another 5 years?
Its easy to make the stretch to trying a bit of alt medicine. It's is not going to make things any worse than they are, if anything the placebo effect of feeling you are in control is probably quite strong.
I don't think it's easy for a healthy person to understand what's going through someones mind when they're faced with this.