It is a very important truism that immigrants and immigration are what made America what it is. We must be vigilant as a nation to have a tolerance for differences, a tolerance for new people. When you have cancer, there's always a finite chance that it will recur, so talking about the whole experience in past tense is a little presumptuous. So yes, I have faced the prospect of dying, of having a specific cause of mortality hanging over my head for the rest of my life. But I don't think the experience changed me, not that either I or anyone close to me has been able to spot.
All art is in some fashion escape.
It sucks you out of your own life. It absorbs you. Retirement is a process. You have to figure out the new rules, and you have to figure out what works under the new rules. There's never enough time.