" Where you don't find love put love and there you will find love. - - St. John of the Cross"

A little about me...

Hi! My name is Scott. I am 45 years old. I am an educator bridging the Digital Divide by teaching in affordable housing. Some of my hobbies and interests... travel, languages, and gardening.

Information about my illness...

In 1972, when I was 17 years old, I was diagnosed with Astrocytoma. I was treated at University of Washington Hospital. I had radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.

My words to others...

My suggestions to other survivors are... Face death will the full force of your life. Silently in prayer alone, noisily together with those you love, compassionately with those who now face death, let your familiarity with the end of life -- and the path back -- be a gift to the world for as long as you are allowed to remain here. Live as if this were your second life.

The most important lesson I learned from my experience is... Through grace, our own determination, the hard work of medical researchers, healthcare workers and our familes & friends -- as well as a healthy dose of pure luck -- we are still alive. If we go through an entire day without at least a momentary awareness of the awesomeness and improbability of our survival and some moment of gratitude for a second chance to meet death again but on more pleasant terms, then we missed the reason that the sun rose.

A positive outcome from my experience is... If I had not experienced nearness to death I could not have so decisively chosen to live. If I were not paralyzed I would not be as mindful of those I encounter or effctive addressing the injustice that is insitutionalized throughout society. If my disability were not so obvious, evoking either compassion or aversion to death from others, I would not have had the privilege of accompanying a handful of people through to death and hundreds of people through the little deaths which make up every day of living.

" I only learned this year, 27 years after the fact, that my childhood pastor, Fr. William J. Powers of the Archdiocese of Seattle, paid for my hospitalization through his will. If there is a hero in this story it is him. May I live my life in a manner worthy of such generous compassion."