just lost my mom in law with a multi year battle with cancer. she was very proactive with her health as this article describes.

it's also important to remember that modern medicine, as wonderful as it is, is still limited. your particular type may have x lines of treatment, the cancer eventually mutates, your body can't handle the latter / harsher treatments, and...that's it.

Definitely get the second opinion, examine all the options, find the open minded doctor, potentially try an experimental treatment. That's all good. But there's a certain piece you or anyone can't control, and it's worth sitting with that too. That no matter what you might do, you might still end up at the end much sooner than you want to. My MIL's 5 year prognosis was awful, and she passed between 3 & 4 years.

But there's a CHANCE you might not and you might beat it, or at least live longer than expected. And even if you don't, you will pass knowing you did everything you reasonably could given the state of medicine today. Both of those are worth fighting for.

And make sure you have somebody around that will pay attention to changes in symptoms. My MIL almost died earlier this year because everyone thought her declining symptoms were the cancer. Turns out it was just too much calcium, once they treated she got a few extra months. She likely would've lived longer had they all caught it earlier.