News of Oliver Sacks’s terminal cancer diagnosis brought an outpouring of well-wishes for the renowned neurologist and author on Thursday.
The 81-year-old Dr. Sacks, who was treated for a rare eye tumour nine years ago, learned a few weeks ago that cancer had metastasized in his liver, he wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times.
“It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me,” Dr. Sacks wrote. “… I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude.”
An appreciation of life & lesson to share. Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer - @CancerFilm @PBS https://t.co/Z3WMz4Apcs
— Ken Burns (@KenBurns) February 19, 2015"There is no time for anything inessential." @OliverSacks says he has terminal cancer. https://t.co/oq4nPLgBVh @raju pic.twitter.com/wDFmZCoN5P
— David Beard (@dabeard) February 19, 2015If you haven't read any of Oliver Sacks' books on brain science, including "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat," you really should
— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) February 19, 2015The British-born neuroscientist is renowned for combining compassion, clarity and attention to bizarre detail in telling the stories of exceptional people: an island with a widely colourblind population, amnesiacs, autistic savants (his book An Anthropologist On Mars first helped to bring the world’s attention to autism advocate Temple Grandin) and, at times, himself. Dr. Sacks wrote about his previous brush with cancer in 2010’s The Mind’s Eye, a book on vision disorders that examined the blindness and optical illusions caused by a malignant tumour in his right eye.
(From the archives: Read Sonia Verma’s interview with Dr. Sacks in 2010)
His book Awakenings, based on his efforts in the 1960s to treat victims of sleeping sickness, was adapted into a 1990 film starring Robin Williams that was nominated for an Academy Award.