"When I asked them when the right time was to tell someone that death is unavoidable, they most often told me that the moment occurs after several successive attempts at stopping the cancer have failed. Only then, when the patient is cornered by cancer, that’s the time."
I wonder if that's a US thing? I'm based in the UK and have been unfortunate enough to have a bunch of friends and family die of different cancers over the last ten years. In all but one case they were told almost as soon as they had a diagnosis. In the one case that wasn't the second consultant that did tell us was quite visibly cross that the first consultant hadn't done the job.