It's been more than seven years, so Benjamin Stein-Lobovits is now able to crack dad jokes about the inoperable brain cancer diagnosis he received, just before his 32nd birthday.
"I like to say that I turned 30-tumor," he says.
Ba-dum-tssh.
But, at the time, the news was devastating; Stein-Lobovits spent many months sobbing on the couch, immobilized by loss and fear.
"You feel so beat up and powerless," says Stein-Lobovits, who quit his job as a Silicon Valley programmer, having lost his balance and ability to type quickly. "It's such a shock to your ego, your sense of being as a man," he explains.
He didn't want to be seen in this emotionally vulnerable state by other people, though he was actually starved for camaraderie and comfort.
Coping with cancer is rarely easy for anyone, bu