Rod Nordland appears to be like on the Istanbul outdated metropolis from Galata Tower on Nov. 20, 2016. Nordland was recognized with glioblastoma, a terminal mind most cancers, in 2019.

Yasin Akgul/AFP by way of Getty Images

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Yasin Akgul/AFP by way of Getty Images

Rod Nordland appears to be like on the Istanbul outdated metropolis from Galata Tower on Nov. 20, 2016. Nordland was recognized with glioblastoma, a terminal mind most cancers, in 2019.

Yasin Akgul/AFP by way of Getty Images

As a struggle correspondent for The New York Times, Newsweek and the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rod Nordland confronted demise many occasions over. He’s felt bullets whizzing by his head in Cambodia, and as soon as escaped a resort room in Sarajevo moments earlier than a mortar assault diminished his mattress to rubble.

But in 2019, Nordland confronted a unique kind of hazard when he was recognized with glioblastoma, probably the most deadly type of mind tumor.

The median life expectancy for somebody with glioblastoma is about 14 months. Less than 7% of individuals survive 5 years. Nordland says his time as a struggle corresponded helped put together him for his most cancers prognosis.

“One of the most important things I learned as a war correspondent was … to stay calm and not lose control of your emotions,” he says. “And I think that’s been a really good lesson for dealing with cancer, too.”

Optimistic by nature, Nordland acknowledges that he is already overwhelmed the chances by residing with glioblastoma for so long as he has. He’s actively engaged in remedy, however he additionally acknowledges that there is no such thing as a remedy for his kind of most cancers.

“I had to face the reality that my death was within a fairly short timespan, highly probable,” he says. “That had never been the case before. And I think it made me a better person for that.”

Nordland writes about going through mortality from struggle and most cancers in his new memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon.

Interview highlights

Waiting for the Monsoon, by Rod Nordland

Harper Collins

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Harper Collins

Waiting for the Monsoon, by Rod Nordland

Harper Collins

On his present therapies for glioblastoma

I’m doing a low-dose of chemo, and I’m additionally sporting a tool on my head referred to as an Optune. It’s a sequence of ceramic arrays which are sort of glued to my head after I shave it. And then they they emit digital beams which are thought to battle tumors. … So each three days or so I’ve to shave my head bald after which reapply the arrays. And I’ve to make it possible for the Optune machine is near me. So it typically means having anyone else carry it for me if I transfer it round or put it in a backpack or behind my wheelchair. So that is a bit annoying and positively restricts my motion rather a lot.

On the unwanted side effects of the therapies

I do use a wheelchair after I exit to appointments, to medical doctors appointments, only for security’s sake. Because whereas I can stroll with a cane generally with no cane, I’m very susceptible to falls and tripping as a result of … when the physician lower the tumor out, he additionally lower some nerves that offered sensation to my left aspect. So I’ve no sensation on my left, which causes a variety of mobility issues. It offers you what they name poor proprioception, which is a elaborate phrase, which means your mind’s information of the place your physique is in area. And in case your mind would not know the place your physique elements are, you are clearly very susceptible to falls, which, in my case, are dangerous for my head [and] may be deadly.

On being a struggle correspondent

When I started working as a struggle correspondent, I used to be nonetheless 20-something and nonetheless in some ways an adolescent. Like a variety of younger folks, I actually did not consider in my very own mortality. And I feel that is true of lots of people who do this sort of work, as a result of in any other case, who would do it? Who would leap out of an airplane right into a parachute in the event that they did not have some perception in their very own immortality? So I misplaced that conceitedness very profoundly after I was on a entrance line in opposition to my very own guidelines in Cambodia, on the outskirts of a refugee camp the place there was a nasty little internecine struggle happening between factions that ran the camp and lived off of the proceeds of the meals and provides they might steal. … I used to be standing shoulder to shoulder with one in all these militiamen, and there have been bullets whizzing over our heads. … And we simply stood there like idiots. And a kind of bullets hit the man subsequent to me and blew his brains out, fairly actually.

… After that, I began doing it actually in a different way. That taught me that I used to be, in reality, mortal, which is a vital lesson that every one younger males ought to be taught as quickly as doable. And after that, I by no means went to the entrance strains anymore.

On the which means of life

I requested everyone I met what the which means of life was. I even requested Alexa. The reply was, to cite Eleanor Roosevelt, that “the purpose of life is to live life to the fullest and to enjoy everything about it.” That’s considerably of a lame reply. But at one time I requested that query of a nurse and he or she turned it round on me and mentioned, “What do you think the meaning of life is?” So I mentioned, “Well, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to punt on that. But I think the meaning of life is, as Raymond Carver said, ‘to feel yourself beloved on this earth.'” And that was my reply then. And it is my reply within the ebook too.

Sam Briger and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Seth Kelley and Carmel Wroth tailored it for the online.