for several years my uncle has been battling cancer in two different sites, and last august, he suddenly found himself suffering great pain and lost, temporarily, the use of his legs. the mri showed that there were some growths pressing on his spinal cord, and also in the part of the brain controlling motor neural activity. he had to get set up with the gamma knife surgeons but seemed to be recovering after that, but then he contracted pneumonia and some of his cancer medication suppressed the symptoms until the infection was full-blown. he was so hypoxic by the time he was taken to hospital that the the pulse oximeter couldn't pick up any reading. he became confused and agitated and his speech became slurred. treated with antibiotics he appeared to be on the mend and was discharged four days later but a day later he had to be rushed back to hospital with another bout of pneumonia (a different bacteria responsible.) it was decided that he should go into icu so that machines can do the breathing for him and this, it was thought, would buy him some time for the antibiotics to work and for his damaged lung muscles to have a rest, or else he would surely collapse from the mere effort of breathing. it was decided, however, that if he did not improve in a week, the family would pull the plug, since prolonged stay in icu would only lead to entropy of muscles and more rapid deterioration. his greatest fear was of becoming a vegetable. when i saw him, he had just been taken out of icu, and he was in a terrible state for the two days - and everyone thought he would surely die - but miraculously he became better on the third - he was on 100% oxygen when i saw him, but since then the oxygen level has been brought down to 50%. he hallucinates - sees crabs and cobwebs and floating tubes, but he also seems to recognise people at times, and can drink water from a teaspoon. i won't tempt fate by speaking too optimistically i think we should just pay attention to willing him better everyday.