Every so often, even in sports, we run into major reality checks.
Think Jim Valvano's terminal cancer, Brian Piccolo, Maurice Stokes. More recently, think Lauren Hill, who died of a brain tumor, but not before embracing everyone with her courage and character.
Now we get another of these sorrowful reminders as Dwayne "Pearl" Washington's brain tumor is malignant - and his doctors couldn't remove it all.
So now he moves on to the lonely world of radiation and chemotherapy.
Washington may be a bit early for the sort of treatment that Duke, among others, is pioneering.