do you remember the bass player from my band, "designing women"?

her name is katherine and she has a brother. around the same time i learned about you, he also learned he had a brain tumor – same kind, needed the same surgery. except, he didn't have the insurance i had. the insurance which allowed me to get care at a cancer "center of excellence." all expenses paid. so i went to new york presbyterian columbia for free and he went somewhere and had to have a go-fund-me to help pay for his treatment. i learned of it on instragram (where we get too much news like this these days) and passed on my good fortune by making a small donation. he has a wife and kids – attachments and dependents i do not have.

he was diagnosed 15 months ago and today, he died.

talula, i am sad for his family but i also feel gratitude and confusion. why him and not me? why am i so lucky? why didn't you kill me, but his tumor did? i am so grateful that my family doesn't have to go through what his family has to go through right now. i am so grateful i'm still here. still alive and still able to function with limited deficit. was it my world class care? was it my "favorable mutations"? was it my deceased relatives who seem to show up in times of need? or was it just dumb luck? the statistics probably support dumb luck, but i haven't seen any studies or data, so i can't be sure (i love statistics...). my radiologist once said "there are statistics, there are anecdotes and there are real life people with unique biology and environments. you never know." no one ever told me a life expectancy or would even venture a guess. i appreciate that and i'm just glad i got more than 15 months. bye, trevor.  

hearts.
.a