Getting Familiar with Life's Certainty: The D-Word

When I thought about what to write for my End Well blog post, I struggled to think of something different from what I submitted last year.

The story I shared in last year’s piece is one I’ve now told a million times. I know it well: where to put the emphasis (“Ever onward!”) and what will get the audience’s applause. Conversely, I know which parts of my story people may want to deny or avoid: death, dying, and the fears and deficits that come with a brain cancer diagnosis.

In July 2016, my brain tumor was discovered after I fainted off a barstool at a downtown Detroit coffee shop. It turns out it wasn’t just a simple faint. I had a grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma.

A grade 3 astrocytoma is a junior glioblastoma, or, more accurately, a glioblastoma is a grade 4 astrocytoma. It is incurable and considered a terminal diagnosis, though many patients prefer to call it a chronic illness.

That doesn’t mean I’m dying tomorrow, unless, as my neuro-oncologist once told me, I get hit by a car or something like that. It simply means we don’t have a fix.

Last year, Molly shared her patient story with us. Click here to learn more about her cancer experience.

We expect my tumor to maybe charge up and for those rogue astrocytes to return, either as anaplastic astrocytoma again or as GBM. One or the other, no lesser.

I won’t get better. We just hope we can hold it off as long as possible before its encore performance.

Worse than recurrence or GBM? There’s not really anything worse. It’s a turd sandwich.

Though, come to think of it, there is worse.

Worse is denying that recurrence is possible. Worse is convincing myself that I am cured and “cancer-free,” a falsehood no brain cancer patient should ever be told, only to crumble and fall to pieces when new growth appears on a future MRI.

Worse is failing to mentally prepare for future treatment, including palliative and end-of-life care. I need to decide when to demand that my off-switch be clicked so my family isn’t left making that difficult choice for me.

There may come a time when I can’t write and I can’t speak, so I plan to make these decisions while I’m still in control of my think-box.

Losing my mom last year and my aunt recently brings certain things to the forefront of my life with urgency: Death is guaranteed. Death will happen. I want to be ready.

I feel this way because I love being alive. The thought of leaving this world, everyone and everything I love, scares me. The act of dying scares me more than death itself, to be honest.

I need to be on better terms with death and dying.

If death is anything like falling off a barstool and passing out, I can handle that. The thought of an eternal afterlife is something I can’t even comprehend, but that sounds cool, too.

Dying in pain and afraid? That is what I fear. I don’t want that.

However, I choose to talk about it so I can become as familiar with death and dying as I am with my own name. I talk about death because I love being alive with every fiber of my being.

I love life so much.

And when we are honest with ourselves, we can admit that truly loving life means accepting death as something we all do. There should be no stigma attached to something that is absolutely guaranteed from the moment we come into existence.

I’m going to die. You’re going to die. So is everyone we’ve ever loved and hated.

We are all going to die.

That’s that. And that’s okay.

Last year, I suggested that we live our best lives and live them right now.

This year? Live your best life. Live it right now. Because one day, you are going to die.

Learn to let that be okay.

And be ready.

After spending 36 years aimlessly searching for meaning, Molly found it through a brain cancer diagnosis in 2016. Molly is a cancer patient advocate, speaker, and writer: “Diagnosis isn’t the end. It’s the start.”