In poignant essay, Oliver Sacks says he has incurable cancer
Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, perhaps best known as the inspiration for the doctor portrayed by the late actor Robin Williams in the 1990 film "Awakenings," has revealed in a New York Times essay that he has cancer. It's not Sacks' first bout with the disease. Nearly a decade ago, he was diagnosed with ocular melanoma that eventually left him blind in one eye and served as the basis for one of his books, "The Mind's Eye."
(CNN)It is an unmistakable voice, that of Oliver Sacks, neurologist. "Precise, probing, and epigrammatic" is how Wired writer Steve Silberman once described it.
And soon, the world learned Thursday, it may be silenced.
In a New York Times essay that received instant acclaim for its poignancy, beauty and determination, the renowned scientist and doctor revealed that he has incurable cancer.
"Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts, " he wrote in the Times. "This does not mean I am finished with life."
"On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight," wrote Sacks, 81.
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