What Haley Taught Me About Living With Terminal Illness

I thought I had a pretty healthy relationship with death. I’ve lost people. I’ve had hard conversations. I’ve sat in grief and let it change me. But when I sat down with Haley Wilcox, I realized there are levels to this kind of honesty — and she’s living in a space most of us aren’t willing to go.

Haley is living with an incurable brain tumor. Her official diagnosis is a grade two astrocytoma, and it’s terminal. There’s no cure, no guarantees, and no timeline that feels safe. She was 31 when she was diagnosed. She’s 35 now. And from the moment we started talking, I could feel the quiet power in her voice — the kind that comes from staring death in the face and deciding to live anyway.

There were moments in this interview where I had to swallow hard just to keep going. When she said “this will be what kills me unless something else does first,” my breath caught in my throat. When she talked about losing her speech in the middle of a work call and realizing something was deeply wrong — I felt the panic and the pause of life stopping mid-sentence. But even through all that, Haley speaks with a clarity and softness that makes you want to listen closer. And that’s the magic of her story. It’s not about dying. It’s about how she’s choosing to live.

From Diagnosis to Defiance: Haley’s Story

Haley was working from home in December 2020 when her words suddenly stopped making sense. One minute she was speaking on a video call — the next, she couldn’t get her brain to form sentences. She texted her boyfriend, now husband, and he immediately knew something was wrong. Hours later, doctors found a mass in her brain.

The news was overwhelming. She didn’t tell her family right away — it was a week before Christmas, and she didn’t want to ruin the holiday. She needed time to process it herself. And when she finally got the words out, it wasn’t just about breaking the news. It was about letting people into a reality she hadn’t even fully accepted yet.

Over the last four years, Haley has had two awake craniotomies. She’s now on a drug that’s helping slow the tumor’s growth. She gets MRIs every 12 weeks. Bloodwork every two. There is no end to the monitoring. No finish line. Just hope, routine, and holding onto the good days.

But the hardest part? It’s not always physical.

Haley opened up about the guilt of doing “too well” — of having an invisible illness that some people don’t believe because she doesn’t look sick. She’s felt the sting of being left out, the awkward silence of people who don’t know how to talk to her, and the painful reality that some friendships don’t survive this kind of truth.

And still, she shows up. She talks about death with humor, about pain with honesty, and about life with so much depth you’ll never look at a sunset or a squirrel crossing the road the same way again.

3 Things I Learned About Living with Terminal Illness

• You don’t have to look sick to be sick.Haley lives with constant fatigue, brain scans, and the weight of knowing her time may be limited. But because she looks “fine,” people often doubt her diagnosis or treat her differently once they learn.

• Kindness matters more than you think.“That person with road rage? They might be driving home from the hospital after saying goodbye to someone.” Haley reminded me that we have no idea what someone is carrying. Lead with compassion, always.

• Say the hard things.Most people avoid conversations about death. Haley leans into them. She’d rather you ask the wrong question than say nothing at all. Silence can hurt more than the truth.

What Haley’s Story Says About Us

For me, this episode cracked something open. As a culture, we love beginnings. We throw showers, we plan parties, we celebrate the start of things. But we don't plan for endings. We avoid them. We hide from death like it’s a shameful secret instead of a universal truth. Haley is challenging that — not with fear, but with love. She's writing a book full of reflections, poetry, and dark humor. She's already started leaving pieces of herself behind, just in case.

And that’s the difference. She’s not waiting to die. She’s building a life — one filled with cats, deep conversations, signs from the universe, and the people who show up even when it’s uncomfortable.

She reminded me that love isn’t always about knowing what to say. Sometimes it’s just about staying. Her husband stayed. Her close friends stayed. Her support group of fellow cancer patients stayed. And that love — that presence — is its own kind of medicine.

A Final Thought (and a Small Ask)

Haley’s mantra comes from her friend Tiffany, who also had brain cancer and sadly passed away last year:

Just buy the tickets. Money comes and goes. Time doesn’t.

So take the trip. Call the friend. Write the book. Start the thing.And if someone in your life is living with a terminal illness — don’t disappear. Show up. Ask questions. Love loudly.

🎧 Listen to For The Hayters on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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You’ll walk away different. I promise.