Life in the face of death

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February 28, 2011 [Originally aired 10/11/2011] — The Big C is a new comedy-drama on Showtime that uses the story of a woman’s battle with cancer to point out that in the face of death, we may find a greater appreciation of life, enjoying it to its fullest. Certainly, there’s no time like the present when diagnosed with a terminal illness. And sorting out life with a limited future has its challenges. But isn’t that the reality for all of us? Perhaps our values come into clear focus when our lives become more fragile.

Dr. Dan Gottlieb discusses living life in the face of death, with Jenny Bicks, Dr. Irv Yalom, and Dr. Mark Cato. Bicks is the executive producer of The Big C whose own experience with breast cancer has helped inform her work. Yalom is a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University who wrote about coping with death anxiety in Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, and Cato blogs about his life with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The blog is called Dying to Live.