After his subsequent appearances on television to talk about the chokehold these illnesses once had on his life, people would stop to thank him in airports and on the street for spreading a message of hope, he said.

His children, he said, were initially upset with his decision to turn down dialysis treatments last year, but he insisted that he preferred to control his last days, which lasted longer than even he expected. “I don’t know if this is true or not, but I think some people, not many, are starting to wonder why I’m still around,” he wrote while in the hospice. “In fact, a few are sending me get-well cards. These are the hard ones to answer”.

“So far things are going my way. I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn’t Die. How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don’t know where I’d go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren’t in a hospice. But in case you’re wondering, I’m having a swell time — the best time of my life.”