No Cure for Being Human

No Cure for Being Human Plot Summary

Introduction

In the bright sunlight of her thirty-fifth year, Kate Bowler's world came crashing down with the words "Stage Four cancer." A professor of history at Duke Divinity School, wife to her high school sweetheart Toban, and mother to a toddler son named Zach, Kate was suddenly confronted with the stark reality of her own mortality. Her diagnosis arrived without warning, transforming her from an ambitious academic with decades of possibilities stretching before her into someone desperately counting the days that might remain. Kate's journey through terminal illness reveals profound truths about what it means to be human in a culture obsessed with endless self-improvement. With piercing insight and unexpected humor, she dismantles the American myths of limitless growth, bucket lists, and living your "best life now." Instead, she illuminates a more honest path: how to embrace the beauty and pain of finite time, how to find meaning when facing uncertainty, and how to reclaim personhood when reduced to medical statistics. Through her experience, we discover that there is no formula for a perfect life—only the messy, beautiful reality of loving deeply, making peace with limitations, and finding wonder in ordinary moments while facing the truth that nothing is guaranteed.

Chapter 1: Confronting the Unexpected: A Stage Four Diagnosis at 35

At 4:00 a.m. in a hospital room at Duke University, Kate Bowler's life changed forever. A young doctor in an oversized white coat delivered the news that would redefine her existence: Stage Four colon cancer. Just thirty-five years old, Kate had spent months experiencing unexplained pain and weight loss, fighting to be taken seriously by medical professionals. When she finally received a CT scan, it revealed multiple tumors scattered throughout her liver and colon. The diagnosis was devastating—with a fourteen percent survival rate and a median expectation of two years to live. The brutal arithmetic of mortality suddenly became Kate's daily reality. Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days. Two Christmases, two summers, and 104 Thursdays. In that hospital room, as her husband Toban arrived with coffee clutched protectively in his hands, Kate made the decision to keep the full weight of her prognosis to herself. She had always been a planner, an achiever, someone who could bulldoze through obstacles with determination. But this new timeline forced her to reckon with a fundamental truth: she would likely not see her son grow up. In the days following her diagnosis, Kate's hospital room became a revolving door of visitors—colleagues, friends, and clergy—who blessed her with prayers, hymns, and anointing oils. These moments of spiritual connection provided brief respites of wholeness. Yet when alone again, she confronted the devastating reality that while this might feel like the end of the world, it was only the end of hers. The stark unfairness of it all struck her deeply—that she might miss her son's childhood, that her future had been so abruptly curtailed. Kate's academic background as a historian of the prosperity gospel—a Christian movement promising health and wealth to the faithful—created a painful irony. She had spent years studying a belief system that claimed faith could conquer illness, that positive thinking could manifest healing. Now, she found herself in a hospital gift shop, confronting these books that promised "your best life now," unable to reconcile their promises with her reality. When the store manager asked what she'd recommend instead, Kate could only identify the books that actively blamed people for causing their own diseases. The great triumph of the "best life now" paradigm was how neatly it summarized the promises of an entire American wellness industry: everything is possible if you will only believe. But Kate's cancer revealed the brutal limitations of this philosophy. She couldn't outwork, outpace, or outpray her disease. She couldn't dispel it with a can-do attitude. The prosperity gospel and America's self-help culture had created a paradise for bootstrappers and optimists, but Kate was discovering the harsh truth—that salvation through health, wealth, and happiness is not always just a decision away.

Chapter 2: Living in Finite Time: Navigating Between Hope and Reality

Time took on new meaning for Kate after her diagnosis. What had once been an infinite resource to be maximized for productivity became precious and finite. Every day required careful accounting—how to spend her remaining moments became an exercise in painful mathematics. She found herself torn between two mental tracks: one planning for the possibility of recovery, and another preparing for the high probability that she would not survive to see her son's third birthday. In this economy of scarcity, Kate began skipping arguments, holding her tongue, and sorting through unfinished business. She wrote down internet passwords, canceled subscription services, and prepared for a world without her. At night, she lived by two rules: the No Unnecessary Sadness Decree, which carefully screened all media for potentially depressing content, and the Gratitude Decree, which involved listing every blessing on a whiteboard above the fireplace. Yet even as she tried to reframe her experience through gratitude, she found that thankfulness alone couldn't solve the fundamental problem of having too little time. The moments with her son Zach became especially poignant. Their bedtime ritual included telling him the story of his birth, concluding with "It was you. It was you the whole time." But these sweet traditions were now shadowed by the knowledge that she might not be there for much longer. As he grew from baby to toddler, asking increasingly complex questions about life and death, Kate struggled with how to prepare him for her possible absence while still nurturing his innocence. "But moms do not get buried," he would declare, part question and part demand, and Kate would reassure him that normally people get old before they die. Kate had been a lifelong productivity enthusiast, someone who divided moments into a million uses. Her husband Toban once found her trying to induce vomiting after accidentally taking nighttime cold medicine instead of the non-drowsy version. "Why can't you just take a nap?" he had asked sensibly. "I have so much work I want to get done!" she had replied in distress. Now, in the face of mortality, this drive for efficiency took on new urgency—but also revealed its ultimate futility. No amount of careful timekeeping could create more days. Through treatment, Kate began flying weekly to Atlanta for a clinical trial combining chemotherapy and a promising new immunotherapy drug. The physical toll was immense, but the regimen offered hope. Every sixty days, she would receive a "report card" from scans measuring whether her tumors were growing. The medical team tracked her progress in units of blood and saline, not in the measures that had once structured her life. Kate realized that in this new reality, she was learning to live in the moment—not because of some enlightened spiritual practice, but because each moment might be all she had left.

Chapter 3: Seeking Meaning in Uncertainty: The Search for Answers

In her search for meaning amidst chaos, Kate encountered a parade of well-meaning counselors—all seemingly named Caitlin—who suggested she create a "bucket list" to bring clarity to her remaining time. Though initially resistant, Kate began researching the history of bucket lists, discovering they were more than a modern invention. From the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to medieval pilgrimages to sacred sites, humans have long compiled lists of meaningful experiences to pursue before death. Yet Kate saw how modern bucket lists had become something else entirely—a form of experiential capitalism. Hang gliding. Snorkeling. Times Square on New Year's Eve. A successful life had become one that could be completed, checked off, photographed, and displayed. The problem with these aspirational lists was that they approximated infinity rather than helping people grapple with finitude. With unlimited time and resources, we could do anything, become anyone. But that fantasy avoided the central question: what truly counts? Kate found herself struggling with religious questions as well. As a Christian scholar, she had written extensively about faith traditions, but now faith became intensely personal. Was she unfaithful for clinging so tightly to life? The disciples who followed Jesus were often martyred for their faith, seemingly accepting death without resistance. Yet here she was, withering "in the heat of a cloudless day," desperately wanting more time. She recalled a story about her student's father who, when dying, expressed no wishes for final experiences—he simply sat contentedly in his recliner, humming about how much he loved his family. Kate wondered: "Is this personality or maturity or a natural realism? Had he already accomplished what he wanted to do? What amounted to enough?" Medical language offered little comfort in this existential questioning. Kate's clinical trial doctors spoke in the universalizing language of medicine—its precision, its neutrality, its emphasis on quantifiable data. When she asked heart-wrenching questions like "Will I live through the summer?" doctors responded with monologues about blood work and surgical reports. There seemed no way to translate a unit of time into meaning through medical vocabulary. Kate began studying research papers and medical terminology, hoping to ask questions that would elicit the answers she needed, but the gap between scientific data and human experience remained vast. In airports and waiting rooms, Kate read about the French Revolution and its obsession with quantification. Just as the revolutionaries had tried to impose rational order by redrawing provinces into departments of equal size and decimaling time itself, modern medicine had reduced her to numbers—blood count, tumor millimeters, survival rates. But these abstractions failed to capture her reality as someone's kid, someone's friend, the mom of someone who would not recover from her absence. She found herself "choking on the remainder, on the part that cannot be neatly quantified."

Chapter 4: The Illusion of Control: Bucket Lists and Medical Trials

After months of treatment, Kate reluctantly attempted to create her own bucket list, revisiting an old journal where she had recorded dreams and aspirations since high school. She found entries ranging from "See the pyramids" to "Perform a cello solo" to "Make decent bread." But the exercise felt hollow now. These had been dreams for an unlimited future, not a contingency plan for imminent mortality. She had not understood that "one future comes at the exclusion of all others" and that "you can die to a thousand possible futures in the course of a single, stupid life." The clinical trial offered a different kind of illusion of control—the belief that if Kate followed the strict regimen of treatments, she might be among the fortunate few who responded well. Every Wednesday, she would fly to Atlanta, spend the day receiving infusions, and return home with a chemotherapy pack attached to her body. The side effects were severe: numbness in her extremities, allergic reactions, fatigue, and the inability to hug her son without worry about the toxic chemicals circulating through her system. Yet she endured it all with determined cheerfulness, declaring "Blast me" when doctors asked if she was ready to proceed. Kate eventually discovered that her oncologist at Duke could have provided her access to the same immunotherapy drug without requiring travel to Atlanta. For months, she had depleted her family's savings, relied on donations, and endured exhausting travel while receiving harsher chemotherapy than necessary—all because she wasn't told there were alternatives. The revelation was crushing, especially when she learned that another young patient had been receiving the same treatment locally for months. Yet even this betrayal couldn't shake her hope that the treatment might work. Six months into treatment, Kate received extraordinary news—the immunotherapy appeared to be working. Her tumors were shrinking. For the first time, the possibility of survival seemed real. Yet this glimmer of hope came with its own complications. Doctors were uncertain what to do next with such a rare case. Were the remaining lesions dead or dormant? Could surgery attempt a cure? Kate and her team of researcher friends—nicknamed "No Kate Left Behind"—began investigating options, consulting surgeons across the country about removing the remaining cancer. The decisions were agonizing. One surgeon explained that removing a particularly dangerous tumor buried deep in her liver might leave her with "less than twenty percent" of the organ—potentially leading to a slow death from liver failure. As Kate sat in her car on the side of a country road, contemplating this impossible choice, she realized there was no way out—only different paths forward, each with its own terrible cost. The illusion of control had been stripped away, revealing the stark reality that sometimes there are no good options, only difficult choices made with incomplete information.

Chapter 5: Finding Beauty in the Present: Embracing Limited Time

In the face of crushing uncertainty, Kate discovered an unexpected gift—the ability to fully inhabit the present moment. Not through meditation or mindfulness practices, but through the brutal clarity that came from knowing her time might be severely limited. "The terrible gift of a terrible illness," she wrote, "is that it has, in fact, taught me to live in the moment." What had once been mundane—bedtime stories, morning routines, even pancake breakfasts—now sparkled with significance. At a friend's birthday party, Kate experienced a rare reprieve from her identity as a cancer patient. For a few joyful moments, laughing with friends and joking about a potentially lethal taco being passed down the table, she felt like herself again. The spell was broken when an acquaintance awkwardly suggested she should "go out with a bang" since she was "going to die." The interaction revealed how Kate had become, for many people, not just herself but a memento mori—a reminder of mortality that made others uncomfortable. Kate struggled with competing philosophies about time. Ancient wisdom repackaged as modern mantras—"live in the moment," "you only live once," "don't worry, be happy"—took on new meaning in light of her diagnosis. She recognized how easily "living in the moment" could devolve into irresponsibility or materialism. Yet she also saw truth in the value of presence, particularly when watching her son grow. "I don't realize that one second you can feel like chaff and the next you can be at a wedding reception and your friend Ally is gliding across the dance floor on a drink cart pushed by her husband, who is yelling 'We are never going to die!'" During a zip-lining adventure in Appalachia, Kate confronted her fear of heights—and her deeper fear of taking risks while fighting to stay alive. Standing on a platform high above the ground, paralyzed with terror, she confessed to the guide: "I spend a lot of time trying not to die. So I can't tell if I'm being reasonable right now." The guide, who had survived the removal of one of her lungs in her early twenties, offered wisdom: "Everything is a risk. There is something kind of wonderful about being afraid when you remember that not all risks are equal." Kate realized that living itself requires courage—facing fears and disappointments every day, knowing that in the end, "the hero dies." Hope for the future became a kind of arsenic that needed careful administration, lest it poison the sacred work of living in the present: taking medication, caring for her son, experiencing love in its many forms. Kate found herself torn between preparation and presence, between planning for her absence and savoring each moment with those she loved. "I want to be alive until I am not," she wrote, capturing the essence of her new relationship with time.

Chapter 6: Beyond Medical Statistics: Reclaiming Personhood

After a liver resection surgery to remove the largest tumors, Kate awaited news about radiation treatment for the one remaining tumor that surgeons couldn't safely remove. To her astonishment, when she met with the radiation oncologist, the doctor couldn't find the tumor. It had disappeared—or as the doctor wrote on her business card, become a "pancake tumor." Two weeks later, her oncologist confirmed: "It's gone." The immunotherapy had worked beyond anyone's expectations. Yet this miraculous news brought its own challenges. Most of Kate's family and friends immediately reverted to normal life, as if the crisis had passed completely. But Kate remained caught in a liminal space—no longer actively dying, but not fully "cured" either. She was living in what her psychologist called "apocalyptic time," where the veil between life and death had been lifted, revealing both the beauty and fragility of existence. This state of heightened awareness made returning to ordinary life difficult. Kate found herself isolated in her continued vigilance, her ongoing fear of recurrence, her inability to plan for a future that still felt uncertain. When she stopped calling her regular rotation of friends and family to see who would call her, the phone went quiet except for a handful of calls. The experience revealed a painful truth: "I'm everyone's inspiration and no one's friend." Kate struggled to move forward without knowing what would happen next. She sought out famous oncologists, hoping for clarity about her prognosis, but was met with philosophical evasions rather than straight answers. When she asked about the survival rates of patients like her, one doctor responded: "Why is this so important to you?" Her frustrated reply—"Because I want to live!"—was met with the coldly philosophical question: "But what is mortality anyway?" Kate shot back: "It's dying before your kid goes to kindergarten. I'm glad you're in a position to be philosophical about this." Through intensive research, Kate eventually uncovered disturbing truths about clinical trials. She learned that she had never been a "patient" with a doctor—she had been a "study participant" assigned to a scientist. The pharmaceutical companies running these trials were in a modern "Space Race" to cure cancer, with billions in potential revenue at stake. When trial results were finally published, Kate discovered that most participants with her condition had died. Some had been placed in control groups and denied immunotherapy until their cancer spread out of control. The realization was devastating: "I had always felt intimidated by science, but I can see now that my training as a historian is enough to build the architecture of an argument, what happened to them, what has been happening to me." Despite these betrayals, Kate worked to reclaim her personhood beyond medical statistics. She made the decision to have her chemotherapy port removed—a symbolic step toward living rather than merely surviving. When the surgeon asked what procedure she was having, Kate replied: "I am having my port removed." Then, with characteristic humor: "Or we could do it right here. You could reach inside my chest cavity and rip the port from my beating heart with your bare hands?" This moment of connection with the medical staff, filled with laughter and humanity, marked a turning point in Kate's journey back to herself.

Chapter 7: Unfinished Cathedrals: Accepting Life's Incompleteness

After years of treatment, scans, and uncertainty, Kate approached her fortieth birthday—a milestone she once thought impossible to reach. She resurrected her old bucket list and planned trips and celebrations, determined to make other people's dreams come true alongside her own. She would take her son to Holland with his grandparents, see the World's Largest Ball of String in Texas, host a high school reunion. These plans represented her hard-won hope for a future. Then came another shock—the COVID-19 pandemic. Just as Kate was beginning to imagine a life beyond cancer, the world shut down. Travel plans were canceled, gatherings postponed, and her immunocompromised status made even grocery shopping too risky. The pandemic forced everyone to confront the limitations Kate had been living with for years: the fragility of plans, the uncertainty of tomorrow, the preciousness of ordinary moments. Kate recognized that the pandemic revealed a universal truth about suffering: it is unjustly distributed. The most vulnerable—the homeless, the elderly, people of color, the uninsured—bore the heaviest burdens. She saw how American culture's insistence that "everything is still possible" created a strange cruelty in the face of suffering. The reality was much simpler and harder: "my life is made of paper walls. And so is everyone else's." In this new reality, Kate found wisdom in an unexpected place—an unfinished cathedral in Portugal. Years earlier, she had visited the Batalha Monastery with her father, where they discovered an octagonal chapel with no roof. Seven kings had overseen its construction, yet none lived to finish it. An elderly tourist explained to Kate: "Don't you see? It's us! I can't imagine a more perfect expression of this life... We're never done, dear. Even when we're done, we're never done." This image of the unfinished cathedral became Kate's metaphor for accepting life's incompleteness. She realized that all human striving is, in some sense, "wonderfully unnecessary" and "unfinishable." We do too much, never enough, and are done before we've even started. This acceptance didn't diminish her desire to live fully—it enhanced it. As she watched her friend Richard, another cancer survivor, lead an Easter service at dawn, she reflected on how time really is a circle: "We are trapped between a past we can't return to and a future that is uncertain. And it takes guts to live here, in the hard space between anticipation and realization." Kate's journey taught her that suffering is not something to be solved or overcome, but an inevitable part of being human. There is no formula for a perfect life—only the messy, beautiful reality of loving deeply, making peace with limitations, and finding wonder in ordinary moments. As she put it: "We are cobbled together by the softest material, laughter and pets and long talks with old friends. By God's unscrupulous love and by communities who give us a place to belong... Our lives are not problems to be solved. We can have meaning and beauty and love, but nothing even close to resolution."

Summary

Kate Bowler's journey through terminal illness reveals perhaps the most essential truth of human existence: there is no cure for being human. Through her intimate confrontation with mortality, she exposes the hollowness of cultural myths promising unlimited progress, perfect health, and complete control over our destinies. What emerges instead is a more honest path—one that acknowledges our limitations while still embracing the beauty, pain, and wonder available within our finite time. Kate's story teaches us that meaning is not found in checking off experiences on a bucket list or achieving perfect productivity, but in the messy middle spaces where we love imperfectly, hope cautiously, and find beauty in ordinary moments. From Kate's experience, we can draw two profound lessons. First, we must learn to hold two opposing truths simultaneously: that life is precious beyond measure, and that it will inevitably end. This tension creates a space where each day can be fully embraced without denial or despair. Second, we need communities that allow us to be honest about suffering rather than forcing false positivity or premature resolution. By acknowledging our shared vulnerability rather than hiding from it, we discover our deeper connections. For anyone struggling with uncertainty, chronic illness, or the weight of mortality, Kate's journey offers not a formula but a companionship that whispers: you are not alone in this beautiful, terrible, unfinished life.

About Author

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Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. She is the author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. After being unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) and her latest, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear). Kate hosts the Everything Happens podcast where, in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks with people like Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Lamott about what they’ve learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School.

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