Experiencing Time

A friend, who recently underwent surgery about a month after receiving his cancer diagnosis, remarked in an email to me a couple of days before his surgery that it had been a long month. My experience has been similar. It has been less than 14 months since my cancer diagnosis, but it seems to me that the diagnosis was rendered years ago-- five years, 10 years ago, maybe longer. Assuming that this perception that time is slowing is common for people living with cancer or terminal disease, I wonder what causes it?

Conversely, it has always been my impression that people without cancer or terminal disease perceive that time is accelerating as they age. When I was healthy, it certainly seemed to me that time was moving faster and faster. The explanation that I have heard for this perception is that a year is 20 percent of a five-year-old's life, but only two percent of a 50-year-old's life. Although this explanation seems plausible, I have never been wholly satisfied by it. And why may the correct explanation, whatever it is, not apply to those living with cancer or terminal disease?