April 2023 Kenneth Halmos

In the fall of 2002, I was 31. I remember the ride down to Boston in my friend’s van like it just happened. There were six of us that walked into the hospital together; they were more than my friends, they were my family. I’ve never told them until now how much I owe them for that.

After the first of my three brain tumors was removed, I was in the Boston hospital for three weeks, CMMC in Maine for four weeks to have rehab so I could walk on my own and do other simple tasks, like make a grilled cheese. I never told anyone but I hated it. I made me sooo angry, but I smiled and laughed about it and moved on with my life.

In 2018 I had my second brain tumor removed. The removal of the second tumor was surprisingly uneventful except that it came at the time that I was about 2/3 into the build of our house, which I was the lead builder and the general contractor on. Lucky for me, I have great friends that helped me finish almost on time with the build.

That leads us to 2019, the removal of the last brain tumor. My wife of 19 years, daughter who is 18 years old, and my son who is 12 did not only have to deal with me again, but we were also dealing with my wife having stage 4 breast cancer. She passed on away on October 8, 2022.

I am not going to lie and say it will be easy, but you can continue to fight and move on. You may have physical limitations, but you are still who you are on the inside, even if you forget who that is for a while. It’s okay to have fear. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but never let it stop you from doing anything you want to do.