{"id":39,"date":"2026-03-21T17:10:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/?p=39"},"modified":"2026-03-21T17:10:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:10:28","slug":"im-34-im-dying-and-im-fucking-terrified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m 34, I\u2019m dying, and I\u2019m fucking terrified."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col grow max-w-full\">\n<h1 id=\"post-title-t3_1jmb0vj\" class=\"text-neutral-content-strong m-0 font-bold text-18 xs:text-24 mb-xs px-md xs:px-0 xs:mb-md overflow-hidden\" dir=\"auto\" aria-label=\"Post Title: I\u2019m 34, I\u2019m dying, and I\u2019m fucking terrified.\" aria-describedby=\"feed-post-credit-bar-t3_1jmb0vj\"><strong><em>I\u2019m 34, I\u2019m dying, and I\u2019m fucking terrified.<\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-neutral-content\">\n<div class=\"mb-sm mb-xs px-md xs:px-0 overflow-hidden\" data-post-click-location=\"text-body\">\n<div id=\"t3_1jmb0vj-post-rtjson-content\" class=\"md text-14-scalable pb-2xs [--emote-size:20px]\" dir=\"auto\">\n<p><strong><em>I have terminal brain cancer. I\u2019m not even sure I want to say what kind. Doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s the kind that wins. Doctors are saying months, maybe less if things go south fast. I\u2019ve tried to keep it together for my wife, my daughter (she\u2019s not even 3 yet), my parents, friends\u2026 but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been this scared in my life.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>People keep saying \u201cstay strong\u201d or \u201cjust take it one day at a time.\u201d But how the fuck do you do that when every day is just one step closer to leaving the people you love behind?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>I look at my daughter and wonder if she\u2019ll remember me at all. That\u2019s the part that\u2019s breaking me the most. Will she remember how I made her pancakes? How I did that dumb little bunny voice that always made her giggle? Or is she just going to grow up with photos and a couple of videos and that\u2019s it? I watch my wife trying to be strong and holding it together for everyone, and I know she cries in the bathroom so I won\u2019t hear. We haven\u2019t really talked about the end. We sort of pretend it\u2019s not real. Or we talk in practicalities; paperwork, insurance, what she\u2019ll need to do when I\u2019m gone, but not about it. The actual not being here anymore part. I\u2019m scared of the pain, yeah. But more than that I\u2019m scared of missing everything. Her first day of school. Her reading her first book. Her falling in love. I want to be there so badly it physically hurts. I don\u2019t even know what I want from writing this. I guess I just needed to say it out loud. I\u2019m not strong. I\u2019m not brave. I\u2019m just a dad who\u2019s dying and doesn\u2019t want to leave his little girl behind.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m 34, I\u2019m dying, and I\u2019m fucking terrified. I have terminal brain cancer. I\u2019m not even sure I want to say what kind. Doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s the kind that wins. &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}