In 2014, we built “Match.com for cancer.” It eventually died. The idea didn’t. Twelve years later, a CancerBuddy retreat sent me looking back at 30 years of survivorship, community, failure, progress, and the shoulders we stand on.

Thirty years ago, I walked into Gilda’s Club and the Wellness Community as a 22-year-old brain cancer survivor looking for people who understood. I recently returned to its successor, Cancer Support Community, and finally understood what those rooms, and the people who kept them open, had given me.

After 22 years away from solo performance, Matthew Zachary returns to the stage April 28 at Merkin Concert Hall in NYC. A live piano concert marking 30 years since brain cancer, featuring stories from the cancer community and the launch of We the Patients.

I was 21. Brain cancer came via a blinking answering machine. There was barely an internet. No young adult programs. We kind of all just died back then. But I didn't. I've watched three decades of impossible become ordinary—and it's been the greatest terrible privilege. 2026 is the Year of the Patient.