“You Do know You’re Going to Die from This, Don’t You?”

Glioblastology, the Book

Friends it’s Chapter release Thursday, and we’re ready for Chapter 8. Get this: In this chapter, we meet my (first) radiation oncologist. Tomorrow, Friday, March 21, 2025, Whitney and I are meeting with the radiation oncologist who will oversee my radiation therapy for the next phase of treatment for my disease recurrence. It is incredibly surreal to be releasing this chapter while symbolically rewriting its sequel tomorrow.

It worked out just so last year that I had my 42nd MRI scan on my 42nd birthday. How many events had to happen at exactly the right time to set that up? Now, this chapter comes out tonight before I repeat the exercise tomorrow. Odd.

As a reminder, chapters are available for paid subscribers, but I don’t want that to be a barrier to access, so please reach out, and I’m happy to extend a complimentary subscription. Thanks to the annual and founding subscribers who make this possible!

xx. <3 -a.

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Chapter 8. “You do know you’re going to die from this, don’t you?”

“You do know you’re going to die from this, don’t you?”

I turned to Whitney, squeezed her hand, and turned back toward the physician, rotating at the torso in my chair, opening my shoulders and chest to the doctor. “Yes,” I replied. I did know that I was going to die from this.

A yellowed eye chart was taped to the closed door to my right. This was our first visit with this clinician, and my mind was preoccupied with the aesthetics of the examination room. We sat on chairs with similar nondescript upholstery to the chairs that provided little comfort to all of my visitors from the ICU to the hospital recovery room, to the inpatient rehab facility, and my neuro-oncologist’s exam room, where we squeezed chairs into the corner and heard news of the diagnosis only days before, and here, too, in the radiology suite. Naïve to the examination protocols and the dangers of neurological damage from radiotherapy, my attention during this meeting was fixed on the eye chart. Will I lose my sight? I wondered. I glanced at the chart, then back to the doctor.

“Good,” he continued, “because I want you to know that what we’re doing here isn’t curing anything.”

This 800-bed hospital began with 60 beds around the turn of the 20th century. Over the years, the hospital expanded to incorporate a number of specialties and is now the third level one trauma center in the state. In fact, it’s the designated hospital for injuries suffered during the races held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the speedway that was Whitney’s object of fond childhood memories while she looked out toward the west end of the city and I lay semi-conscious in bed, recovering from surgery. My discharge date coincided closely with the hundredth running of the Indy 500, “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

That was three or four weeks ago.

This is the hospital where I was kept responsive while a large section of my skull was removed. This is the hospital where Megan stroked my knuckles and fed me ice chips, where I decided to forego an aggressive course of surgery to mitigate the risk of permanent paralysis. This is the hospital where a neuro ICU nurse restored faith enough in my voice and wisdom to set me on a path to write a book about my experiences. In this hospital, a neurosurgeon saved my life and a CNA saw to it that I got a proper shower—qualitatively, only a difference in degree, not in kind.

In this hospital, my parents read to me, one of our closest friends brought matzah ball soup, and my philosophy faculty friends peppered me with questions, not because they tested me, but because those of us interested in philosophy—really interested, enough to consume ourselves in many years of study—are maladjusted to social norms, and we see careful inquiry as the greatest good. This is the hospital where Whitney lay beside me on an uncomfortable cot and stroked my face while I hallucinated and writhed in fear and pain.

This is the hospital where only a couple short weeks after this appointment a young man—“young”; my age—completed his life, dying too soon from the same brain cancer that I was told now infiltrated my brain. This is the hospital where Whitney and I would meet this young man’s father, who supported our family while anticipating loss in his own. I’d arrive in the passenger’s seat of our minivan, Whitney driving through cool rain that drizzled from an overcast sky and beaded on the windshield. I slouched in the seat, disoriented by brain swelling and a threatened life. I asked who we are here to meet.

“I told you about him; about his son, who’s dying. He wants to help us.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure. Did Whitney tell me about this? Is this appropriate to meet a man outside of the hospital while his son clings to life inside? What does that even mean, “dying”? Actively? Popular culture presents death as an abrupt affair with alarms, rushing bodies, specialists from other hospital services who must be urgently pulled from their operating rooms by frantic interns, with pagers screaming their digital frequencies, and “Charge the pads to 300, clear!” and “Hang another bag of O-neg, wide open!”

Dying.

Right now?

Or in the process of dying?

Am I?

We turned into the large center drive, where many patients stood, waiting to be picked up. Some puffed cigarettes away from the nurses, and others trolleyed their oxygen canisters along the sidewalk, talking loudly into their cell phones. Clinicians in scrubs and white coats hurried in and out. The rain fell harder, and I lowered the power window to reveal a crack between the window and the door frame. The scent of fresh Midwest late-spring air rushed in. “Look for him,” Whitney instructed, and she read a vague description that he had texted Whitney earlier that day. I performed the requisite head turn to identify a body in the crowd, but I wasn’t looking for anyone. I slouched lower.

“His son is dying?”

I directed the question toward Whitney, but this was a query to no one: a comment phrased as a question.

“From brain cancer,” Whitney replied, “like yours.”

He walked hurriedly to our van, stepping from beneath the permanent canopy outside the main entrance. I lowered the window. His right arm stretched from the cuffed sleeves of collared shirt, and instinctively, I unfolded my arms and opened my palm. He clutched my hand. His touch engaged me, while his eyes shifted to meet Whitney’s. They shared words, but the dialogue is long forgotten; locked away. I recall the uplifting feeling of the exchange and his warm eyes. Before long, he released my hand, and he traded the handshake for a small envelope.

“We heard about your family, about your story,” I recall him saying. I opened the envelope, and I peeked at the folded cash inside.

“We wanted to help. This is part of our son’s legacy.”

I felt tingling beneath the cartilage at the tip of my nose, and the corners of my mouth were tugged downward as my chin jutted forward. My eyes watered. A lump formed in my throat. This was a moment of community, the brain tumor community. The community that no one wants to join but that upon membership entitles you to generous outpouring of love and support. We pay it forward, as able.

“We want to help,” he repeated, with an assuring hand on my shoulder.

He retreated to the large revolving door under the canopy.

His son died not long after.

We never met, but I like to think that his son and I forged a connection that rainy, Spring afternoon. His young life, a service member, full of energy and kindness, stolen by this disease that we share. His life closing several floors above, in the large hospital, his dad, in the rain outside, Whitney, embracing the role of caregiver without fear, and I am slouched in the passenger’s seat, struck by my position in the liminality of life and its conclusion. I am part of someone’s legacy, and it is now part of my legacy that others will join, and the good work his dad leads with friends and family on his behalf touches those who our family touches. Recovery, rehab, and treatment are all about moving forward, but on that rainy day outside the hospital, it dawned on me that it is also about what we leave behind, and so I hold this urgency in mind, to do my very best work today.