Having mortality thrown in your face

It's quite shocking to have an oncologist tell you that one of the possible surgical outcomes is that they may take one look and stitch me back up and say their is nothing they can do. You suddenly start thinking of the things that you might never be able to do again, stuff that up until a few months ago I was taking more or less for granted. It's difficult to find a balance between being overly optimistic and unduly pessimistic, at the moment I have no idea whether worst case means weeks, months or years.