Commentary: I have months to live. Here’s how I’ve embraced acceptance

“You have many months to live,” my palliative care doctor told me recently. She must’ve thought that was more polite than saying “less than a year.” I have finally advanced to the stage predicted by my oncologist, who said seven years ago, “I’m thinking years, not months.”

I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at age 53 and expected to live for three years. Practical to a fault, I bypassed the first four stages of grief —