Prologue
Brooklyn, NY
2025

I don’t have time for a fucking brain tumor.

In six weeks, I’m installing one of the biggest projects of my career: a 6,000 square foot home I designed for a Super Bowl MVP quarterback. My husband is deep in the chaos of his NBA season, a six-month stretch that essentially grants him a hall pass from family life to focus on coaching a herd of nineteen-year-olds who are barely out of college, and honestly, barely out of the womb.

Meanwhile, we have our own children to manage. Two rambunctious twin boys, one with special needs, and their not-much-older sister, my personal saving grace. And, of course, it’s the holidays. That magical time of year when every day becomes a rotating carousel of school performances, dance recitals, cookie exchanges, Secret Snowflakes, and buying gifts for anyone we remotely made eye contact with this year.

So, no. I absolutely do not have time for a fucking brain tumor.

If this thing had wanted a spot on my calendar, it should have penciled itself in sometime between 2014 and 2017. That would have been ideal. Back then, my husband and I were living a beautifully irresponsible life in Europe, bouncing between seven different countries during his decade-long basketball career. No kids (at least until the last two years), and no stress. My biggest daily dilemma was deciding what time the train left for whichever museum I wanted to wander through, or whether or not my husband decided to make his free throws that night. No real-world problems. 

But a brain tumor? 

I would’ve had the available mental capacity, the bandwidth, the leisurely afternoons.

2018, however, would have been terrible timing. We welcomed our first child, Aila, into the world that year.  She was supposed to be born in Istanbul, where we were living at the time, but after my husband tore his ACL, we delivered her in Florida instead. The newborn phase was far from glamorous or even remotely enjoyable. 

Postpartum depression and anxiety hit me like a freight train. I was shocked by how much work a tiny human actually required.

Seriously, who knew? 

So, no, 2019 would not have worked either.

And 2020 was just impossible for us all. I gave birth to our twin boys in Manresa, Spain, and four months later, the world shut down. Not to sound insensitive, but COVID was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. After spending four months alone with three children under 22 months, tandem breastfeeding twins while simultaneously trying to color inside the lines of Peppa Pig with my eldest, I felt overwhelming relief when another adult finally arrived home and stayed home.

We finished the season in what was arguably the strictest lockdown in the world. For 44 straight days, we weren’t allowed to leave our apartment, not even for a walk.

Recovering from brain surgery during that period would have been… inconvenient. 

Then came 2021 through 2025, a stretch of life changes so relentless I’ve been hanging on with white knuckles, waiting to see what would kick my ass next. 

My husband retired from playing and began his coaching career in Memphis. We lived there for nine months, just long enough to buy and sell our first home. Then a promotion brought us to Sacramento, California, where we bought, renovated, and sold another house in just six months. Our two-year Sacramento chapter ended with a ten-day period so catastrophic it deserves its own Greek tragedy. 

Our 17-year-old chihuahua died.

Our son was diagnosed with autism.

And we learned we were moving to New York City. 

Three moves in four years.

So, you see, I’ve had absolutely zero time for a brain tumor. 

And I still don’t.

A month ago, while home alone with my kids, I blacked out after getting out of bed. I braced myself on my dresser, but a second later, my body hit the floor and began to convulse. I remember the high-pitched, electric ringing in my ears and the faint sound of my children downstairs, their voices drifting in and out like they were underwater. My son, Kai, ran in from the kitchen after hearing the loud crash. Thankfully, by the time he reached my room, I had already pulled myself up.

“Sorry, buddy. I was getting out of bed, and my feet got wrapped in the sheets, so I fell.”

Mothers are remarkable creatures. I had just experienced my first known seizure, yet somehow, my brain still managed to assemble a believable lie for my tender-hearted six-year-old so he wouldn’t have to carry the weight of what he had almost seen.

What does a woman with three kids do after having a seizure? 

The only logical answer is to continue being a mother. 

I packed three school lunches, each one finished with a cute doodle drawing that my kids now fully expect. I threw a French braid into my daughter’s hair and listened to Leo read his newest book, the twentieth he had authored this week. Then, I hustled everyone out the door, down the block, and into school before the bell rang.

I painted on a fake smile, greeted Diane, the crossing guard, like nothing was wrong, and walked home. 

The moment I shut the door behind me, I collapsed on the couch and began to sob. I just had a severe medical episode yet I somehow got myself together to take my kids to school, as if nothing had happened. I took a deep breath and called D, hoping he would have a plan for what came next. 

After blood work, cardiac testing, and several conversations, my doctor assured me I had likely fainted due to stress, though he still recommended I see a neurologist to be safe.

Luckily, my husband’s team doctor was able to get me in with the chief neurologist at the hospital, a man who was normally booked five months out. One of the pleasures of having a spouse in the NBA. You may not see them for half the year, but the perks come with opening doors that are usually sealed shut.

He was also confident this had nothing to do with my brain. Still, because he knew I was often home alone with my kids, he decided to order a series of tests as a precaution, just to rule everything out.

A cardiologist consult.

A brain EEG.

An MRI.

And two weeks of wearing a heart monitor.

After two weeks, the neurologist’s office called me to come in immediately. My follow-up appointment wasn’t scheduled for another month, after all my testing was complete. I knew. 

The EEG confirmed seizure activity and showed slow function in my left frontal lobe. The next step was an MRI, one of the tests I hadn’t completed yet. Waiting for it felt endless. 

MRI day arrived five days later. Fortunately, I had acquired half of a Xanax, courtesy of my aunt’s Jack Russell Terrier. As a profoundly claustrophobic person, I can say with full confidence that I would rather remove my eyelashes one by one than endure a brain MRI without the help of narcotics. 

I had never taken Xanax before, but I knew I wouldn’t make it through otherwise. I finally settled on prayer and half a pill.

The next forty-five minutes were brutal. In between the loud clangs and mechanical growls of the supersized magnet, I planned out how life would continue if I did, in fact, have a brain tumor. 

I imagined begging my mother-in-law to retire from her teaching job in Lithuania and move in with us. I pictured my kids living life as normally as possible. I knew my mom and stepdad would step in wherever needed. I mentally categorized which friends and relatives could handle which tasks. 

I had hoped the nurses would be conservative while shaving the small piece of hair they’d need to operate on my brain. I was known for my thick, full head of hair, a favorite feature of mine, and couldn’t possibly imagine losing that.

I had even scheduled my fictional brain surgery around the holidays and the installation of my most important design job. My delusional brain decided the neurologist would be flexible with me. Surely, they would let me wrap up the holidays and complete this project before insisting on surgery. Surely.

After the MRI, my mom suggested I take the second half of the Xanax while awaiting the results.

“Well, thank God,” she said, when I finally agreed. “I’ve been dreaming about how it might accidentally fall out of your hand and into my mouth ever since you mentioned you had it. Now I can move on.” Even after twenty-five years of sobriety, an addict will always be thinking about their next high.

The next day crawled by. My neurologist, regrettably for him, gave me his personal phone number, and I texted him shamelessly, begging for answers to help put me out of my misery. Eventually, he called with the results. 

No tumor. 

I would need to start epilepsy medication immediately.

Epilepsy, I could work with. A year without driving, no baths alone. No swimming pools unsupervised, no bike rides. All inconvenient but survivable. 

Thank God it wasn’t a brain tumor.

Life had already proven itself more than capable of delivering plot twists without my assistance. It didn’t need another one, especially not the kind that required neurosurgery and a shaved patch of hair I would absolutely hold a lifelong grudge against.

I hung up the phone and waited for the world to feel different. 

It didn’t. 

The dishwasher was still running. Someone had left a sock on the stairs. My phone buzzed with a text from a contractor confirming drawer handles. Six thousand square feet of someone else’s dream house was still waiting to be installed. Three children were still coming home from school in a few hours, expecting both snacks and emotional stability. And dinner, unfortunately, still needed to exist.

So I did what I always do, what all women seem to do, when life hands us something unexpected and wildly inconvenient: I added it to the list, picked up the prescription, answered the text message, and kept on going.