Living through brain cancer: A travelogue
Trying to figure out how my brain works post cancer — one experience, symptom, frustration, breakthrough, memory, and story at a time.
This is a first-person record of what it feels like to keep living, thinking, working, parenting, adapting, getting angry, finding humor, and trying to understand a brain and life changed by cancer.
July 31, 2026
I love bicycling. I toured Europe from Amsterdam to Rome and Paris to Valencia, alone, stealth camping with the occasional hostel to shower. Before that, I rode everywhere, cycling to work in the rain, snow, or sunshine.
Read More →July 28, 2026
My wife got an electric bike first. She would ride side-by-side on her electric bike while I pushed myself on a regular road bike. She kept pace, or would pull ahead on the ascents, and I would crush the descents, spee…
Read More →July 8, 2026
There's a neurological test involving scheduling.
Read More →July 6, 2026
I was asked to be the commencement speaker for the graduating class of 2026 at Hastings High School — the high school I graduated from in 1983. These were the students I had to leave in January when I realized that tea…
Read More →June 7, 2026
When people hear what I'm struggling with, and what I've been through, the response is often to pray for me. I always accept. I thank them for their willingness to think of me. They are showing that they care…
Read More →May 21, 2026
I don't expect the doctors to know everything. I understand that the brain is complicated and that every patient responds differently. But I don't understand the endocrinologist who acts like she's been handed a proble…
Read More →August 26, 2026
I have trouble reading line-by-line like I used to. I lose track of which sentence I’m in or where the next line begins.
August 22, 2026
WTF?! Is this my life now? I was sitting, relaxing, and watching a show with my wife when suddenly my jaw seized and started clicking open and closed.
August 20, 2026
I feel like my electric bike has set me free. I rode an indoor bike for weeks at a time — interspersed with days in which I couldn't do anything. Now I'm moving outdoors, one step at a time.
July 31, 2026
I love bicycling. I toured Europe from Amsterdam to Rome and Paris to Valencia, alone, stealth camping with the occasional hostel to shower. Before that, I rode everywhere, cycling to work in the rain, snow, or sunshine.
July 28, 2026
My wife got an electric bike first. She would ride side-by-side on her electric bike while I pushed myself on a regular road bike. She kept pace, or would pull ahead on the ascents, and I would crush the descents, spee…
July 8, 2026
There's a neurological test involving scheduling.
Diagnosis, treatment, radiation, and the medical reality of brain cancer.
recoveryThe long, non-linear work of recovering — physically, cognitively, emotionally.
symptomSpecific neurological symptoms: seizures, fatigue, cognitive changes, and more.
supportWhat it means to receive help, prayer, care, and presence from others.
daily lifeThe ordinary made strange — getting dressed, sleeping, moving through the day.
workIdentity, teaching, and what happens to a career when the brain changes.
identityWho you are when the person you were is no longer available.
Dream the Ride began as a way to write through what was happening — to make sense of a brain that had been operated on, treated, and returned to daily life changed in ways that were hard to explain and harder to ignore. It is not a medical journal. It is not a survivor's guide. It is a travelogue of a particular kind of journey.
Read the StoryDream the Ride stays centered on first-person experience and the author's writing — not a polished health brand, not a clinic, not a nonprofit. Just one person trying to understand what happened to his brain, and writing about it honestly.
