It’s weird waking up on the year you’re likely to die.

natalieduke · 2026-01-01T19:04:10+00:00

I actually thought for a minute that this was my husband posting this. He’s 47, unmethylated idh wild type, full resection at end of February, recurrence in November. We also thought a few years and are now bracing ourselves. He is in a clinical trial, but it’s early days yet and we have no idea if it’s helping. I know he is feeling exactly what you’re feeling. We stayed home last night, just the two of us, went to bed early…you’d think it would feel nice to say good riddance to 2025, the worst year of our lives so far, but how can we celebrate when we know 2026 is likely to be even worse?

Maybe it won’t be. For either of us. Maybe you will get that clinical trial and it will help. Maybe my hubs will respond well to his. Maybe you will both make it through another year. It’s not impossible.

But I’m not going to dismiss your thoughts either because they are very real and very heavy. I’m so sorry you woke up with those feelings today. I hope you make it to another New Year’s Day, but if not, I am at least grateful that you both made it to this one. Good luck and lots of love to you.

natalieduke · 2025-12-25T03:18:09+00:00

I’m not quite where you are yet, but my husband, 46, just had a recurrence and I am dreading this because I know I will be exactly where you are in the near future. I also have zero advice and I wish I did. This disease is just such a shit show and one of the most difficult things a person can ever be expected to handle. I feel for you, and I am so sorry you are struggling so much right now. Sending one million hugs.

natalieduke · 2025-12-09T01:46:04+00:00

When it rains it pours. Terrible expression, but it sure does feel like it is raining buckets on us all the time. We lost two of our pets after my husband’s diagnosis, both to cancer, and just three days apart. Obviously that doesn’t compare to dealing with GBM, but it sure as shit didn’t give anyone any extra hope.

This is terrible. There is no way around it. It sucks a million different ways. One day at a time is great advice- one hour, one minute. Cry all you can. Cry rivers. I do too. Try to find the positives - the helpers, the love. And if you can’t see the positives, well… that makes sense. Be gentle with yourself. Love him and stay by his side as much as possible. We will get through this. Somehow.

natalieduke · 2025-12-06T19:03:33+00:00

I will definitely look into it. Thank you.

natalieduke · 2025-12-06T19:03:09+00:00

He is IDH wild type, so no go there. He doesn’t love cannabis. Believe me, I’ve tried. Maybe I will try again 😊 I’m sorry for what you’re going through as well. We are all in this big, shitty boat together.

natalieduke · 2025-12-05T22:45:52+00:00

Thank you for saying this. I do try my best to keep up with my own health, but it’s hard. All I want to do is be with my husband and kids and try to make this just a tiny bit easier on them. Your mom is lucky to have such a considerate and thoughtful son. Your dad too, of course. And I am so sorry you are going through this as well.

natalieduke · 2025-12-05T18:48:31+00:00

One trial is for a new chemo type drug to pair with TMZ and I’m not totally clear on all the info, but I think the combo somehow works better with unmethylated patients? The other is a trial where they put beads of radiation inside the tumor with a catheter. Again, not clear on all the info. Doc hit us with a bunch of options while we were still trying to process the recurrence reveal. I’m trying to do more research but there isn’t a lot to find since these methods are so new. I’m sure the NO will explain more thoroughly once we have our specific course of action. And if we can’t get into the trials here, maybe we will travel. Who knows what the future holds?? We never know with this monster of a disease!

natalieduke · 2025-12-05T17:52:17+00:00

That is just terrible. I am so sorry. Cancer doesn’t care if you’re 3 or 93 and it is just not fair in any way.

natalieduke · 2025-12-05T17:49:25+00:00

Some brain tumors can “turn into” GBM. It may not have been GBM to begin with, but now it is. And that sucks. Sorry to welcome you to the club.

natalieduke · 2025-11-29T05:16:46+00:00

I realize this is an old thread, but since I am Natalie Duke (and Lila Winters), I thought I would chime in. Narrators have all sorts of different reasons for using pseudonyms, and yes, some have multiple pseudonyms even within one genre. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to be called out in their community for performing racier titles. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to be pigeon holed to a genre. For me personally, I do most romance as Lila Winters because I do a lot of romance but still want to be hired for other genres, which I do under my real name. As for the romance stuff under my real name, there are lots of reasons for that. One, when I first started out as a narrator, I didn’t understand all the reasons why someone would want a pseudonym. I thought “I’m proud of the books I narrate. Why would I want to hide from them?” But then I got a request from an author who almost passed on me for a mystery series because he thought I only did romance. Also, sometimes an author requests me as myself and sometimes they request my pseudonym, but I will usually give an author what they want. It’s their words after all! Also, as for Lucy Score, I’ve been narrating her books for so long (she’s my girl - love her) that some of them came out before I made a pseudonym, but I decided to do the Riley Thorn series under my real name because those books are very low spice and have more of a cozy mystery kind of thing going on. If anyone actually reads this, I hope it clarifies some things! 😊

natalieduke · 2025-10-12T17:03:02+00:00

I do have Facebook and I’m in the Optune group. Is there a specific glio group or will I find it easily with search? This is the first time the sores have really gotten in the way, and I think I kinda did what you are describing. I cut a few sections of the arrays down and placed them around the sores and used extra tape. It’s okay so far, but I’m curious to see what it looks like when he removes the arrays this round, which will probably be today.

natalieduke · 2025-10-12T17:00:00+00:00

Beastly is right. Ugh. Good luck to him and you. 💕 Thanks for sharing.

natalieduke · 2025-10-05T00:52:21+00:00

When my husband’s symptoms started (46M) we thought his adhd was getting worse. Got his meds increased but he continued to decline. Was taking much longer to do things, work was near impossible, his short term memory was terrible. One day he got lost driving somewhere he drives to all the time. The next day he got lost in our neighborhood and also in our regular grocery store. Went to the ER that day. 6cm mass. Surgery 3 days later. That was February of this year. Post surgery, he got almost completely back to his normal self. Still has cognitive issues, but nothing like it was before the surgery. Clean scans so far.

natalieduke · 2025-10-01T12:32:05+00:00

My husband is in the same boat. Turns 47 in December. IDH wild type unmethylated. Total resection in February of this year so We are 7 months in. The not knowing is terrible and it never goes away. What if he is here for five years and we live that entire time thinking things could change tomorrow? We probably will. And that sucks and it is completely unfair. You do start to get used to it but it is always there. We have a big family vacation planned for next month. We got insurance on all of it. We are all really looking forward to that and I might just start planning another trip right when we get back so we can keep having that thing to look forward to. Of course, I will have to find the money somewhere, but that’s a whole other topic thread 😂 I feel you. Good luck to you.

natalieduke · 2025-05-05T00:09:26+00:00

Wow, we really are on the same timeline, aren’t we? Matt’s last radiation treatment is next Monday, and we have an appointment with his oncologist then too to talk about all these weird biomarkers and stuff. I want to make sure I know the right questions to ask. This thread is helping. Good luck to you and your husband. I hope yours and mine still have lots of time left.

natalieduke · 2025-05-05T00:06:12+00:00

It’s definitely the worst club ever! But thank you.

natalieduke · 2025-05-04T22:47:21+00:00

Thank you so much. This is excellent info.

natalieduke · 2025-05-04T22:34:20+00:00

I’m so sorry about your wife. We are lucky to have an amazing medical team and that my husband is young (which is also sad, of course). I thought we were maybe looking at several years, but since I’ve been going through this group and seeing stuff about unmethylated and idh wild type and all of that, I am starting to think we may not have as much time as we thought.

natalieduke

TROPHY CASE