I am surprised the last post in this thread was already more than a year ago. Surprised McCain has lived this long.
I read yesterday in a German news outlet (spiegel.de, I presume) that he has decided to stop all treatment of his brain cancer, which at this point apparently is chemo therapy. That decision would also include not going for any future surgery or radiation therapy in case of new tumor growth.
In my estimation, this means the final weeks are upon him. I see no further public appearance, as the tumor will from now on inhibit organic functions inside the brain more and more from weeek to week, perhaps day to day, until some day a lethal threshold is reached.
I went through this with my girl friend in 2011. A recidivism of her glioblastoma was found in mid August. It was then decided that chemo therapy obviously no longer worked to check tumor growth, and to discontinue it (I still have the last pill of Temozolomide, which was already bought and payed for at that time; it cost €3,500!). It was also decided that the tumor was impossible to cut out mechanically due to its location, and that the brain could not tolerate another regime of tumor-busting radiation. So the rest was palliative care. We were still able to travel at the end of August, in the second half of September I brought her to the hospital to control pain, at the end of September we moved into a hospice, on October 5, she died - less than 2 months after the decision to stop cancer treatment altogether.
In those last 3 weeks, it was like watching a house from outside at night, where someone is going from room to room to switch out the lights. I imagine that's what it will feel like (or perhaps already does) to John McCain's family.
