Sounds to me like he was holding on to some sense of control while he was struggling with losing control to cancer. He'd survived it once already, and had been

Sounds to me like he was holding on to some sense of control while he was struggling with losing control to cancer. He'd survived it once already, and had been given a coins' toss chance at long term survival; in medical terms, that's a decade and a half more of life. Faced with painful chemotherapy and likely years of pharmacological interventions that have their own side effects, he ... took a different path. I'm thinking it's a safe bet that there's a deficiency in the NHS' delivery of counseling and mental health services for those facing mortal crisis.