From the biography:
"He decamped to Jamaica for the winter but his 'stomach bug' caused discomfort and he felt ill for hours on end. By early November, he was back at Passevant, undergoing tests involving a degree of pain. But he was determined to be well, 'if it kills me'. It was widely suspected-but not by Coward- that he had cancer. [When warned against his chain smoking he switched to menthol's.] ... after the tests were done the doctors said, 'We've got marvelous news for you. You've got a kidney stone.'"
The biography does not mention treatment for the stone and he continued in pain till his death in 1973.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
William Shakespeare's Sonnet XXX
Friday will be my second lithotripsy in as many months and I hope the last.
At Madison Square Park
