Writer, poet, foodie, and storyteller Lynn Hoffman considers that question in Radiation Days, a memoir of his experience fighting throat cancer.

How many arrows will you put up with? How often are you willing to puke? What's a good day, no, what's a good enough day? Is there anything in your life that you care about so much that you'll let the archer shoot every day rather than take Death's hand? So far, there is something for me. There's my kid, there's poetry, and story-telling. There's the memory of teaching, eating, drinking, dancing, and being silly. There's the flight to Milan and the ferry to Staten Island. There's a love, there are friends. There's curiosity, vanity and even still, a bit of lust, a love of laughing. But I'm pretty thin and the price of time gets higher with each tick.

In a memoir filled with humor, wit, and practicality along with doses of hilarious crankiness, touching vulnerability, and poetic triumph, Hoffman creates an uplifting must-read for anyone who has ever battled something they were told was "unbeatable."