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March 10, 2026

Dear Annabelle Gurwitch
 by Stephanie Kemp


Dear Annabelle (do you mind if I call you Annabelle?),

I can’t wait to read your new book, “The End of My Life is Killing Me.”

I have some questions (and maybe some cancer).

Normally, I just have compliments for you and your books (especially “You’re Leaving When?”), but since this one isn’t out until the 17th, I can only base my questions off of what I’ve accidentally heard from your (very ambitious and impressive!) promotional tour.

I didn’t even know you had a new book coming out until I caught the tail end of your interview on AirTalk the other morning, talking to someone who wasn’t Larry Mantle about the “3 H’s” on what to say when you don’t know what to say to someone who has cancer. (I am so truly sorry you had or have cancer.)

You said to ask the person with cancer if they want to be:

Heard
Hugged
Or
Helped

I liked this. It sounds like such good advice, especially because most people want to help most people with cancer, and all people don’t always or ever or sometimes seem to know what to say to those people, whether they love, like, just met, or are watching them from a distance.

I had or have cancer and would have liked this sort of organizing principle for the people who didn’t know what to say to me, even though I was:

  1. usually sick of talking (that knocks out wanting to be Heard)
  2. really bad at being Hugged properly (because of my chest port and also because I’m still a little hug adverse from the pandemic)
  3. Unable to ever explain properly what kind of Help I might need outside of wanting to make sure my husband and daughters had Help if and when they needed it. (Although I would still like help with my post chemo penmanship and eating less pie. Especially because I never even liked pie before I finished chemotherapy and I am also still working on not eating too much of the stuff I have always loved to eat - mostly cheese, crunchy bread, wine, Casa Bianca Pizza with a dash of pasta al forno, my mom’s chicken tetrazzini with more wine and maybe some garlic bread plus some of her chocolate chip cookie dough)   

While I was busy chewing on the 3 H’s, you had moved on with Larry’s AirTalk stand in. (Was it Science Reporter Jacob Margolis? I love Jacob Margolis.) You were explaining what it means to be a:

“Cancer Slacker.”

Genius! All sorts of bells went off in my head.

IF EVER THERE IS A TIME YOU SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SLACK OFF IT SHOULD BE WHEN YOU OR I HAVE CANCER.

I felt so validated. So relieved. So seen.

SO HEARD! AND HUGGED! AND HELPED!

There was finally a name (CANCER SLACKER!) for the dark side of this reality and not only was I not alone, but I was with Annabelle Gurwitch!

I held onto this happy thought (and pre-ordered your book) hoping we might be kindred spirits on this newly (for me) established Identity front until I saw you on Real Time With Bill Maher a few days later, where not only were you on Bill Maher (not very slacker-y), but you  were talking about:

  • all of the cancer patients and/or survivors you have let live with you since your diagnosis.

  • your ever evolving participation within various cancer communities, including but not limited to: science, research, funding, lack of funding, the treachery of having, getting, keeping, navigating health insurance (and as if these were not enough, I am pretty sure I am forgetting something……s.)

  • Oh yes! You are also tutoring kids with cancer. (Did I get this right? You are doing so many things that for all I know you might even be tutoring grown ups and/or kids without cancer.)

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad you are feeling (and looking!) so good.

This shit is scary.

The idea that you accidentally found out you had lung cancer (when you were never a smoker) during Covid while being responsible for and with yourself and your kid by getting an early test….

The idea that you are currently on a daily pill keeping you healthy that “might just stop working one day” because your body has caught on to what the medicine is doing in there….

The idea that Trump and Kennedy are “in charge”…. (of anything.)

Terrifying.

Speaking of terrifying, I just found out (through my old clinical trial) that it looks like my cancer (double hit B cell lymphoma) might be back and they have to hustle to get me approved for a new clinical trial (“within a 12 month window”), so that I can get the new meds that my body hasn’t caught onto yet.

(“It’s a tricky insurance approval because this immunotherapy treatment for a single infusion is $500,000.”)

It’s also tricky because our MPI insurance is currently set to expire in September.

What the fuck is happening?*

All of this to say…..(I’m going to wrap this up because I want to go for a walk now.)

I’m really glad you wrote a(nother) book.

I can’t wait to read it (and/or at least try to see you at your upcoming Q&A with Bob Odenkirk - also not very slacker-y).

I am also glad you are currently ok.

And once again you have made me laugh  through something really fucking hard.

I am rooting for us.

With thanks, love and Hope (still my favorite H word, even though I am currently sort of mad at it for being so noncommittal),


Stephanie

*/ps: I guess “what the fuck is happening?” is really my only question (although I reserve the right to ask about your post-diagnosis European heavy metal groupie tour after I read the book. Maybe this will be just the kind of cancer slacker-y storyline I have been Hoping for to Help me feel Heard and Hugged………and let me off the Hook for feeling like such a (cancer) slacker.