I think it is helpful at this time to mention my niece, who died from liver cancer at the age of 26. When she was diagnosed with liver cancer, she wanted to focus on how to cure herself, mentally and physically. When we went to visit her, we taught her some meditation techniques and had many talks. She told me that she had gone to some of the support groups for cancer but she didn't want to go back to them any more. I asked her why and she told me that many of the people were angry and bitter. She didn't want to be angry as she felt it wasn't good for her physical and mental well being. She felt that it wouldn't help with her disease.
I agreed that anger would not help and encouraged her to develop compassion, lovingkindness and forgiveness for as many people as she could. Developing herself in a spiritual way is a healing on one level. Whether she was capable of healing on the physical level was unknown. Although, she didn't succeed in curing the disease, because it was quite serious, she went into remission much to the surprise of her doctors. She gained valuable time to develop spiritually so she did succeed on the mental level. She would have been much more prepared to die had she not worked on this level.
Most of the people around her were amazed by her. She never complained because she was trying to watch how she reacted. She was trying to heal herself both physically and mentally and she didn't believe that being angry and having self-pity would make her feel very good. She knew she may have very little time. So when I think of someone who approached a serious disease in a good way I think of her and I feel Sympathetic Joy for her.
If we live in fear of being diagnosed with a serious disease we will be spoiling our disease-free present with a future possibility which may never happen. We may not be able to enjoy our good health now and the opportunities to use it for benefit.
However, we all will die. How we die is unknown. If we have an incurable disease we have a little more time to prepare our mind for our death than if we were to die suddenly. If we reflect on death we can develop our mind in beneficial qualities in the present in order to strengthen our mind and capacity to accept that our life is impermanent.
If we accept that we will die, then we can use any fear that arises as a training ground. Because fear is something that could arise when we are dying , if we can recognize it, work with it and let go it go when it is not crucial for us to do so, we be more able to transform or let it go when it is essential.
So whenever fear arises, try to see as an opportunity, to work with fear and prepare yourself for death. Becoming more objective, noting the fear, trying to feel it, learning to have compassion for ourselves, reflecting on others in the world who have fear, developing more of the D/D Compassion/Lovingkindness with fear.
Also strengthening our confidence. The confidence in our ability to deal with difficult situations in life. If we have a sense of refuge then our confidence in our ability to deal with difficult situations in life increases. Reflecting on the Dhamma and the refuge it gives you to walk out of Dukkha can bring confidence. A sense of refuge is quite important.
When I look back on my niece, she had confidence in herself. It is amazing in such a difficult time she had confidence in herself, that she could help herself.