Terminally ill Redditors share an average day in their lives

Dozens of people have shared responses to the question, "Redditors who know how much time they have left — what does your day look like?" Some respondents are teenagers; others only have a few months to live. But if you suspend for a moment the assumption that the posts are written by people who face death, many of the responses read like they could've been written by anyone. Take this comment by tofu_llama, for example:

The stories are mostly about time: life, years, before, after, months, days

Many people wrote of future plans and memories they had of the past, especially regarding when they first learned of their illness. Not all the posters gave details about their diagnoses, but many who did shared details about stressful hospital visits and the effects of medication.

Connections to people were a central focus: friends, siblings, spouses, and children

Other stories described physical ordeals of illness: pain, cancer, disease, death

But nearly all of the shared stories described varying moods, thoughts, and feelings triggered by illness

Many of the accounts, of which you can read more on Reddit, articulate painful, challenging experiences. Among the most common phrases used by redditors replying to these harrowing stories? Hope.

Read more: 23 charts that explain how we die

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