September 2024. The cancer is back. Stage 4. Metastatic.
The timeline: symptoms again in May and June. Colonoscopy in August found a tumor in the small bowel. First chemo treatment in September, which is when they told me the staging.
Nearly four years after stage 3, this is different territory. The survival curves look worse. The treatment options narrow.
So: what now?
The Statistics
Stage 4 changes the probability distribution. Median survival is measured in years, not decades.
I understand the statistics better than most patients. I know what median means (half live longer, half don’t). I understand confidence intervals. I can read Kaplan-Meier plots. I know how censoring affects reported outcomes.
This knowledge doesn’t help. It just makes the uncertainty more precise.
The PhD Decision
I defended my mathematics master’s last October. Almost a year ago now.
People ask about the PhD I was planning. I actually tried to start in Fall 2024. Had the GRE scheduled. While driving to the test center, they canceled on me. Rescheduled, but by the time scores came back I’d missed the deadline.
Frustrating at the time. In retrospect: perfect timing. The chemo I’m on now is intense. There’s no way I could have handled coursework this fall.
Plan now is to start the PhD in Spring 2025. By then, treatment should be more stable.
Why a PhD with Stage 4 Cancer?
The reasoning is simple.
If I have 2 to 5 years, I can complete significant research. If I have less, the work still matters, even incomplete. If I have more, great, I’ll finish.
The degree itself doesn’t matter. The research does.
A PhD program gives you access to computational resources, collaboration, structured research time, and legitimacy for ambitious projects. And critically: time to work on problems that matter without having to justify immediate commercial value.
What Changed
Stage 3 gave me urgency. Stage 4 gives me clarity about what’s worth doing.
I’m not interested in safe, incremental research. Not interested in publishing for metrics, academic politics, or work that doesn’t matter.
I want to work on AI safety and alignment. Computational suffering. Complex networks analysis of AI systems. Statistical methods that might outlive me. Hard problems worth solving even if they remain unsolved.
A PhD lets me work on these without asking permission.
The Time Calculation
Optimistically: 5 years is enough for a PhD and meaningful research.
Realistically: 3 years is enough for good papers and tools.
Pessimistically: 1 year is enough to make progress worth preserving.
Any of those outcomes is better than not starting.
The Math Degree
I defended last October. Topic: maximum likelihood estimation for series systems with masked, censored failure data.
The irony wasn’t lost on me during the defense. I’ve become a series system. Cancer affects multiple organs. Treatment affects everything. Failure of any critical component is catastrophic.
I was literally studying the mathematics of the process I’m living through.
The Practical Reality
Stage 4 means more frequent medical appointments, treatment side effects, uncertainty about time horizons, physical limitations.
But I’ve been managing this for three years already. I know how to work between chemo cycles, document when energy is low, batch computational work, accept reduced productivity.
The PhD will have to accommodate this. That’s fine. The work matters more than the pace.
What’s Different This Time
Stage 3 was scary but felt manageable. Beat it once, you can beat it again.
Stage 4 is different. This isn’t about “beating” cancer. It’s about managing a chronic condition until I can’t.
The optimization problem changed. Not: maximize lifetime. Instead: maximize meaningful work given uncertain lifetime.
A PhD is the right tool for this optimization.
What I’m Not Doing
I’m not being brave or inspiring. Not fighting heroically. Not staying positive. Not finding silver linings.
I’m making decisions based on probability. Optimizing for meaningful work. Accepting uncertainty. Continuing forward.
Cancer doesn’t make you wise. It makes you confront tradeoffs explicitly.
The Plan
- October 2023: Defended math master’s thesis
- May/June 2024: Cancer symptoms returned
- August 2024: Colonoscopy found tumor in small bowel
- September 2024: Stage 4 diagnosis, started chemo
- Fall 2024: Tried for PhD admission, GRE got canceled, missed deadline. Treatment too intense for coursework anyway.
- Spring 2025: Start PhD in Computer Science. Focus areas: AI safety, complex networks, statistical computing.
Whether I finish the PhD or not, the work will exist. That’s what matters.
Medical Records
For a comprehensive view of my treatment journey including detailed clinical notes, lab results, imaging reports, and treatment documentation, see my Medical Records & Health Dashboard.
Stage 4 in September 2024. Defended October 2023. Starting PhD spring 2025. Let’s see what we can build.
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