Interesting thanks. I thought the course of events was: get cancer. Use quackery for a while to no effect. Get real treatment. Discover its a treatable form of cancer. Live half a decade more. Succumb to cancer.
Unfortunately, the doctors told him it was a (rare) treatable form of cancer that needed to be surgically treated immediately, he refused, preferred to treat with diet, didn't work, finally had to have a more much invasive surgical intervention (transplant). Helped, but he still died. If he would treated it correctly when he was first informed, he would probably still be alive.