Humorist Annabelle Gurwitch faces stage 4 cancer, finds ‘unexpected joys’

This is Fresh Air. I am Teria Gross. Existential dread. That's what my guest Annabelle Gerwich says her new memoir is really about. It's the kind of dread she experienced after getting her diagnosis of stage four lung cancer.

She got the news in 2020, in the early days of the COVID lockdown. To make matters worse, she was separated from her husband and they were divorcing. Odds are she would have been dead by now, but she has a form of cancer that's responsive to a new form of targeted therapy that turns off the gene that has gone rogue. But the cancer eventually outsmarts the drug, often in as little as a year and a half. And then it's on to radiation and chemo and a ticking clock.

Though the drug is still working for Gerwich after five years, the future remains uncertain. Over those five years she's become a patient advocate, become a mentor to other cancer patients through a program in which she was mentored, and she's involved with helping medical researchers gather evidence of patient reactions to new therapies. Her new memoir is called The End of My Life Is Killing Me The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker. She comes up with some great titles. Her previous books include Wherever You Go, There They Are, Stories about My Family You Might Relate To, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, a Love Story.

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