GAG - good to hear from you. My xh also got aggressive cancer about two and a half years after the bomb. Then a year later his mother died. In fact I think it set him back in his crisis. I believe without the cancer and his mother's death he would be further along. It just froze him for the longest time.
But I think your xh is further on his journey than my xh was when the cancer struck.
I really look forward to reading your thread again. Thanks for posting here.