That's very similar to how my OH dealt with his diagnosis.
He's always been a "get on with it" kind of person rather than a "tea and sympathy" kind. He doesn't consider himself brave a tall - he considers it a practical necessity to keep going, do all he can to keep himself as healthy as possible to fight off infections, etc.
Ever since he was diagnosed, he's been very practical and pragmatic. It's keeping him going and keeping him sane. He was given 18 months to live and is currently six years post diagnosis and still going strong and living a pretty normal life.
One of the ways he copes is that he takes a great interest in his condition and has done loads of personal research as to the side effects of the various drugs he has to take, making copious notes of how he feels, side effects, etc. in a kind of daily diary, which he alleviates by taking different drugs at specific times of the day to see if he can reduce the side effects, which he's been very successful at doing. He's also very proactive with his oncologist and has "tweaked" the drugs and doses, sometimes against the oncologist's wishes, such as asking to reduce the dose of a particular drug when his research has discovered lower doses available (for some reason, the oncologist always starts him on the highest dose of each new drug, which usually causes terrible side effects, so they end up "negotiating" either a lower dose or to take a drug ever two days instead of every day, etc. He also asks for a full printout of his monthly blood test results so he can plot his own readings to see for himself what markers are going up, doing down, staying steady, etc., which also helps him when discussing doses with the oncologist.
He's basically taken control of it himself. So far, it's working well. Luckily the oncologist is very amenable to adding/removing/changing drugs. As I say, he's living a pretty normal life as far as possible. It's his way of coping. A lot of that comes from his oncologist and special cancer nurses not being fully open and upfront about how the condition progresses and how it will ultimately kill him - when he asked at first, the responses were very woolly to say the least, so he went and researched it for himself, so he knows exactly how it progresses, the kind of damage it's doing, what it will lead to, i.e. organ failure, potential other fatal consequences such as infections that the body won't be able to fight against, etc.
As awful as it sounds, now he knows chapter and verse about how it progresses and how it will likely end, he's a lot "happier". I know some people prefer to live in ignorant bliss, but as I say, my OH has always been practical and a "stiff upper lip" kind of person, and that's how he's coping. Rather than adopting a head in the sand approach, he's meeting it all head on and planning for the inevitable.
As for dealing with other peoples' comments and sympathy. From day 1, he decided not to tell anyone! Simples. No one can make silly comments or give unwanted sympathy if they don't know he's got cancer. It's not easy as friends/family sometimes think it's odd that he won't go to big family occasions, parties etc (due to risk of infection), but it's his life (and his death!) and he has the right to do what he wants to. It's hard for me, but I fully support his decision.