clock without hands

The main character, JT Malone, in Clock Without Hands has leukemia.  The way in which he discovers his lethal disease is eerily like my dad and my brother.  He was just living his life and one day notices he feels off.  Time passes and eventually he makes his way to the doctor to discover the advanced blood born cancer.  Through the denial and anger, he eventually begins to realize the truth of the diagnosis.  He's a pharmacist and he's sitting there in his pharmacy holding his pestle which has been used to make thousands upon thousands of remedies.

As he sat holding the pestle there was in him enough composure to wonder at those alien emotions that had veered so violently in his once mild heart. He was split between love and hatred – but what he loved and what he hated was unclear. For the first time he knew that death was near him. But the terror that choked him was not caused by the knowledge of his own death. The terror concerned some mysterious drama that was going on – although what the drama was about Malone did not know. The terror questioned what would happen in those months – how long? – that glared upon his numbered days. He was a man watching a clock without hands.