“My bus is here”: A phenomenological exploration of “living-with-dying”.

To make sense of the remarkable differences between the research participants' accounts of their experiences of living with a diagnosis of advanced cancer, a focus on process and meaning helps to understand these as different responses to the challenge of death awareness.

Abstract

A thoroughly idiographic approach that advocates staying with the diversity that characterizes the experience of living with advanced cancer. It is argued that to make sense of the remarkable differences between the research participants' accounts of their experiences of living with a diagnosis of advanced cancer, a focus on process (i.e., What happens when people encounter their mortality?) and meaning (i.e., What does it mean to them?) helps us to understand these as different responses to the challenge of death awareness.