Debussy was already fighting his own personal battle against colon cancer

One of the interesting facts about Claude Debussy, he was already fighting his battle against colon cancer. Debussy began experiencing acute rectal pain by the year's end of 1908, and he soon started experiencing everyday bleeding. Early in 1909, Debussy writes to his publisher Jacques Durand on his doctor's advice to increase his exercise routine and switch up his diet. Debussy continued to endure grueling exams and unfathomable torment, but it wasn't until the summer of 1915, six years later, that he received a formal diagnosis. Life for Debussy and his family got significantly more difficult as the war began its second year. Food and fuel shortages, as well as a constant rise in price, making it harder and harder to make a livelihood. “It is almost impossible to work,” Debussy wrote, “to tell the truth, one hardly dares to, for the asides of the war are more distressing than one imagines. I am just a poor little atom crushed in this terrible cataclysm.”

In addition, his condition was developing in a terrifying way. Debussy had colostomy surgery and radiation therapy on December 7, 1915. Debussy wrote on June 8, 1916, when he was unable to work and extremely sad.

Debussy took heart after finding inner strength and started to write more music than he had in years. At the composition's debut on May 5, 1917, Debussy mustered the courage to play the piano portion of his Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano. A scholar writes, “reading Debussy’s letter from his last years, all the while contemplating the degree of almost endless suffering and ongoing physical deterioration is itself a painful experience. And yet he soldiered on, displaying precisely the sort of spirit and courage often attributed to those fighting a terminal disease.”