08/18/2025
To those I love,
I want to speak plainly, without pretense or performance. What I’m about to say isn’t easy to hear, but it is mine to say — and yours to receive with the same honesty I’ve given it.
Something has come up in my recent labs. A small thing — an elevated number, an early whisper — but in my body, it could mean something far louder.
As many of you know, I’ve already fought this war once before. Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Stage IV. It had spread to my bone marrow and spleen. My body could no longer make red blood cells. I lived through nine months of brutal treatment — every Monday and Wednesday — pumped full of poisons that nearly killed me in order to save me.
And it worked. For a time.
But now, I fear it may be coming back. And this time, the road ahead is even more uncertain. The treatments would be harder, the risks greater. My marrow is not what it once was. My body is not what it once was.
And so I have made my decision:
I will not fight it again.
This is not surrender. This is not giving up. This is choosing how I will live, and how I will die — on my feet, not in a bed; in my own voice, not silenced by tubes and protocols; with fire in my soul, not numbness in my veins.
I will work as hard as I can. I will live as fiercely as I can. I will make meaning in every moment I have left. But I will not spend what time remains trying to buy more time.
Please understand: this is not just about me. I will not allow anyone else to carry the weight of this with me. You have your own lives, your own joys, your own paths to walk. I will not be a burden. That is not how I want to be remembered.
I know this may hurt. I know some of you will want to fight for me, or with me. But this is my boundary. This is my peace. Please respect my will in this.
There will be no drama, no announcements, no countdown. Just me, living — until I no longer can.
And when that time comes, I hope you’ll remember me not for how I died, but for how I chose to live when it mattered most.
With love, always —
Thom
