I marked Spring 2026 to be one of my most productive semesters ever — two great classes, events planned for our Center for the Study of Evangelicalism, a great OAH in Philadelphia coming up in April, and at long last a return to writing a book, Religion, Race, and Democracy in American History, and starting my dream book project for way down the road, Visions from the Apocalypse: Global Religious Responses to World War II, that had sort of been on hold for a while as I attended to myriad other tasks, not least chairing my Department through a tumultuous year for everyone in academia and, more locally, a series of budget cuts that would downsize my university pretty significantly. Yes, I had plans, and my new electronic pomodoro timer to get myself back on the hamster wheel of churning out the rough draft.

The best laid plans, as we all know, often turn into a pile of eggnog (a drink that always makes me gag). Fist, the roof needed replacing, then the boiler that runs pretty much everything plumbing related in the house. Additionally, this, that, and the other thing that all went wrong at the same time. Then, as posted about previously, my mother passed, not unexpectedly but nonetheless a time for grief and reflection. Then, of course, . . . waves hand at everything . .. no need to elaborate on the ongoing catastrophic assault on democracy, on the Humanities, and everything else; you all already know that.

And then, at exactly the same moment, belatedly following up on my primary care doc’s advice to get my neck ultrasounded “just in case,” one thing led to another and in late January I was diagnosed with probable stage 3/4 oropharyngeal cancer (no, I had never heard of that either, but a biopsy soon confirmed what the radiation oncologist called after a quick visual inspection; she’s seen it before and knew exactly what it was). It happens to be the fastest growing kind of head/neck cancer in the country, caused by a virus that you have to be spectacularly unlucky to contract but, once contracted, can grow for 30 years or more before presenting as cancer, and usually asymptomatically so you have no idea and there’s no real way to screen for it. Congratulations to me, I won the lottery from hell.

And yet not really. Fortunately, this type of cancer is treatable, and most people get through it ok, as I anticipate I will, so not really worried about actually, you know, continuing to live. However, the standard textbook 7 week chemoradiation treatment, no matter how well targeted, will likely destroy your vocal cords, salivary glands, and generally most everything in the throat area; as the radiation oncologist expressed it, what used to be there will be replaced by a giant burn scar. If one is lucky, you might after a year or so get back 80% of your capacities, but your life as you once knew it is over because complete recovery from the side effects ain’t gonna happen. Will I ever by able to enjoy those 2009 Bourdeaux wines carefully stacked away in the basement? Stay tuned! First, let’s see if we can return to sipping some delicious and nutritious chicken broth.

In short, welcome to 2026. I’m grateful for the treatment and docs/nurses/speech and swallowing therapists who were, to a person, supremely professional and compassionate. The side effects were no surprise, given that I followed a textbook pattern so I knew exactly what was coming, and yet, the sheer agony of waking up every hour every night with a mouth full of saliva thick as mud that feels like it will choke you to death and, paradoxically, a throat dry as if you had been walking through desert for 3 days without water, just can’t be described by any text. Bonus points for having peak side effects after the completion of treatment, as I did, though thankfully this week they eased off just a tad. Feel free to look up xerostomia, mucositis, dysphonia, lymphedema, and odynophagia to learn more about the joys of having your head/neck area and particularly your mouth put through the radiation wringer. Also I particularly enjoyed the morning they installed my feeding tube, which required a longer hospital stay than anticipated, giving me the chance to attend virtually a faculty meeting where the precise dollar figures of our budget cuts were outlined. Truly a morning to remember, followed by an afternoon where every cough produced spasms of pain. A hospital procedure involving some pain and a faculty meeting at the same time — a morning that will live in infamy!

On the plus side (warning: dark humor ahead), my diet plan worked! A year ago I was definitely overweight and disgusted with a photo I saw of myself. I was working on it last year and happily had trimmed maybe 20 lbs or so, up to January. Now, 65 pounds lighter, I’ll be ready to eat as much as I want, as soon as I am able to, you know, actually eat without using the feeding tube currently stapled into my stomach given that I can’ t actually swallow anything that’s not straight liquid. The last time at this weight, I was 15, and recovering from a nasty case of amoebic dysentery I contracted during a summer in the Amazon region of Brazil in 1976 (long story . . . ).

I’ll update this occasionally to reflect more both on my physical progress (knock on wood) and what reflections I have on the whole experience. Just a few for now:

1) audio books turned out to be my best solace and distractor during the worst of everything, and also gave me the chance finally to “read” The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, the very deserving Pulitzer winner from about 15 years ago but just never seemed relevant to read. Suffice to say, if I had been going through this a generation or two ago, everything would have been so much worse; suffice to say, also, that the genetic inventiveness of cancer cells is truly astonishing to read about.

b) This entire time called for the exercise of the two virtues that are not, to put it charitably, my strong suits: patience and humility. Better late than never to learn about developing more of both.

c) Related: my chemo time every Monday was mostly non-eventful, and indeed turned out to be a pretty good time to get work done since you’re just sitting there for 4 or 5 hours waiting for the fluids to drop through you. But it also gave me the chance as amateur anthropologist to observe an entire world that I knew nothing about before. The rituals, behaviors, and customs of a subculture were endlessly fascinating to watch, observe, and mentally record. Likewise for the daily radiation treatments, and the assortment of humanity passing through there.

d) Friends/family/colleagues were beyond generous, and without them, no way I could have survived this without losing my mind.

e) The thought of how long recovery will truly take is sobering, and best not to think about too much; better I guess to remember, poco a poco.

f) I lived 64 years virtually without any medical issue ever of any kind save for the usual illnesses that hit everyone and one tongue surgery (annoying, but minor enough) 13 years ago. I mean, not even a broken bone, for god’s sake. Going from that to sort of permanent patient status is something that I . . . I don’t even know what to say. Working on it.

Perhaps more importantly — still so much I want to do professionally, and yet, how much do I really want to? The spring sort of punched a hole in my everyday routines and what I should be doing, and whether I even want to do all the things I have signed up to do. Some people emerge from this sort of thing with renewed energies and passion to do what they had been planning; others think, why not, like Candide, cultivate your own garden, restore some inner serenity, and move on from work goals to enjoying life. Much more to reflect on as the tilt-a-whirl of the last months still is set on high and it’s not safe to get off yet.

Thanks for reading this autobiography of an (ex?) narcissist (homage to James Weldon Johnson). Will our protagonist truly learn anything from all this? Stay tuned, dear reader.