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This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. If there was ever a life designed to teach one how to face death, mine was it.

my guest Rod Nordlin wrote that while facing death from a glioblastoma, the most lethal

cancerous brain tumor. It's incurable. The median life expectancy is 15 months.

Only 6% of people survive five years. He's now at 4.5 years plus. Even if you go into remission, the cancer is likely to recur.

Nordland was used to facing mortality from his many years as a war correspondent for the New York Times, Newsweek, and the

Philadelphia Inquirer. Wars and conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Congo, Cambodia, he was there.

In his new memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon, he writes about his life as a war correspondent

and as a cancer patient and how both extremes affected

his relationships and family life.

The title is a reference to his first seizure when he was in India, filling in for the New York Times New Delhi

Bureau Chief.

That seizure led to his diagnosis in 2019.

He's already defied the odds of survival, but he writes writes I have no idea if when you are reading

this you will be able to Google my obituary or sign up to see me at your local

bookstore. He spoke to me last week from his home in New York.

Rod and Nordland, welcome to Fresh Air. We spoke years ago. Welcome back.

Yeah, thank you, Terry. You know, when when your memoir ends you're in pretty good shape you've had many clear brain scans of no sign of return or spread of the tumor

What's the status now? Well, yeah, there has been some spread of the tumor.

It's pretty minor so far.

I'm on a new treatment regimen that we devise with the help of doctors all over the

...