Excerpts from Peter Morgan's diary

I bought this notebook at Woolworth's yesterday....I am writing this because of the love I have for my family, and it also makes me feel good to write. I will never re-read what I have written.

Yesterday, I was told I Probably have a tumor invading my bone. I shiver with tears for my family and friends. How will I tell my family?!!!!!

The day after our meeting with the doctor at [Memorial] Sloan Kettering....Oh God, the pain, the pain, the pain. There is no greater pain. I have terminal cancer.

I have come to understand that the cancer state I'm in is my Holocaust.

As long as I am comfortable I will do as the doctors say. When I am chronically uncomfortable, I will pray for an early death. Throughout it all, I just continue to plot a daily course.

If some angel asks you,'How did you live your life, and did it matter?' I would reply, 'I sucked the marrow of life dry.'

The pain of seeing your parents with watery eyes, knowing that their 29-year-old son, their oldest son, is dying from cancer....

Because of my experience with my condition, I feel I have come full-circle as a person and as a physician.

At least by writing, I feel connected somehow to life, less isolated less alone in my illness.

If I could make some small impact on a small group of people's lives, then maybe I have shared something eternal.