These, and others, were the questions that faced Mick May, author of Cancer and Pisces, in the early summer of 2013. His response was instinctive; he went fishing.
Sometimes alone but more usually with family or friends, he even invited members of his esteemed medical team. Most usually his expeditions took him to the trout streams of England, but he recounts falling in love with fishing whilst working in Texas, and his sixtieth birthday celebration that took him even further afield, literally to the ends of the earth, Ushuaia, Argentina.
Throughout it all he had fun. There are moments in the book when the gravity of his illness casts long shadows but these are put into context by the energy and joie de vivre with which he approaches medical matters, his working and domestic lives and, of course, angling.
The story is suffused with humour and elation as he enjoys all these extra and unexpected years that have been allotted to him.
Might Mick have found the meaning of life? Read on….