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People contain multitudes, goes the saying. It’s trotted out to explain why someone does things that are contradictory. Most often, Walt Whitman is credited with coining it, in “Song of Myself.”
The line is useful whenever I ask myself one of the more glaring questions surrounding an essay I wrote for the Well desk about my cancer diagnosis and surgery: Why is someone like me, so private and introverted, sharing intimate details of my health with New York Times readers?
Beyond the wisdom of poets, I don’t have a ready answer. I was diagnosed on Memorial Day last year (the palindromic date 5/26/25, in case I ever wanted to forget!), and a month later I had surgery to remove the tumor. Weeks after, when I was trying to distract myself from nausea that could quickly cascade, I grabbed the notebook on my night stand and started writing.
The notebook was there to record what drugs I took and when, so I wouldn’t forget or repeat a dose. That day, though, I used it more like a diary, of my body turning on me.…Read more by Ethan Hauser