In Memory of Jay Grossman

Published in The Vineyard Gazette

By JAY GROSSMAN, November 3, 2025
It’s the same room: the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital emergency room, almost two years later. Last winter I wrote an op-ed about my stage 4 metastatic lung cancer diagnosis and the extraordinary support I received from my Island community.

A word of advice, if you ever find yourself in that position, don’t Google it or ask AI. With no treatable genetic mutations, my prognosis was grim — a median survival of 15 months and an 11 percent chance at surviving five years. I was 58, enjoying the breath of each morning and every bit of life.

With guidance from local friends, I found world-class care close to home at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. There I began chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation to my hip, back, adrenal glands and brain.

In the midst of my own struggle, this past April we buried my father and sister, who each died from lung cancer just three days apart. He was 89 and she was 57. I helped them as best I could, but I never had the courage to tell my father about my own illness.

Back on Island, we created a remarkable cooperative treatment plan between Martha’s Vineyard Hospital (MVH) and Dana-Farber, allowing me to receive most of my infusions right here. After my 25th treatment, Barbara Rush, head of the MVH Center, told me I was an outlier — she never had a patient who received so many treatments on this chemo regimen. Still, there would be no “chemo bell” for me; my cancer is terminal.

But Barbara and her MVH Infusion Center colleagues — Sam Cron, Jenna Coutinho and Carleigh Frazier and others — have kept me steady, hopeful and alive. It is the best compassionate health care you can receive anywhere — the gold standard. After seeking out the best in the country, I found that my dream medical team was already here: Barbara Rush, lead nurse practitioner of the MVH infusion center, Aubrey Ryan, physician assistant, and radiographer Erica Maloney.

Then in August, I began feeling pressure in my legs, not quite pain, but something that felt like a tightening vise. Barbara suggested scans if it persisted. By September, the pain became unmanageable. Aubrey guided me through several ER visits and managed to get my severe pain under control. She also called down to radiology and ordered an urgent spinal MRI. When Erica saw me the next morning, she saw that I was scheduled for a brain MRI in Boston. She was able to quickly get the necessary approvals, speak to my Boston team and get all my scans done. This saved me a day of travel, with a quicker diagnosis and it changed everything.

The results led to further testing, and finally a spinal tap confirmed the new diagnosis: Leptomeningeal Disease, cancer that spreads to the spinal fluid and brain. It occurs in only about five per cent of cases like mine and is often missed unless someone insists on testing. Barbara ordered it, Aubrey monitored it, and Erica caught it. Because of them, I’m still here to write this. They deserve statues outside Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.

The new prognosis was blunt — two to three months to live. There are no machines in New England, but with proton therapy, if I could access treatment on a $200 million machine at NYU Langone, I might have 11 months. I was able to get into Langone, and just finished 10 treatments over two weeks. Even though the treatment was aggressive and caused fatigue, nausea and poses cognitive risk, I was one of the lucky ones. As little as 16 months ago, people with my disease had no chance of survival.

You see, I’ve got plans. I want to see my children marry and maybe have kids, and fall even deeper in love with my wife of more than 31 years. Nancy and I have been together since we were 18 years old. Plus, I want the chance to know Aubrey’s and Erica’s kids better!

In the time it’s taken me to write this, my optimism has only grown because even now there are new advancements in the treatment of LMD. My goal is simple — to set a Guinness record for both the quality and quantity of whatever time remains.

When you go through a serious health crisis, you realize that medicine can treat the illness, but community heals the person.  I learned that from my first cancer diagnosis at age 22 of Hodgkin’s Disease. At the time, I thought the “doctor” would just fix me. But a friend and client, Jeff Blatnick, a gold medalist in Wrestling at the 1984 LA Olympics who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma set me straight. He said: “It’s all about your attitude, to be resilient and keep bouncing back from negative outcomes.”

I’ve taken that advice to heart, not only in navigating my health care, but in living my life.

Over the past two years, through my second and now third cancer journey, I’ve seen the best of what a small community can offer. On Martha’s Vineyard, healthcare isn’t just about hospitals, doctors or appointments — it’s about people who show up, repeatedly with kindness, empathy and strength. It’s the neighbor who drops off soup, the people who insist on you staying in their apartments in Boston or New York for treatment, and the nurse who checks in, not just on your vitals, but on your spirit.

At the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and across the Island, I’ve experienced care that goes beyond medicine. There’s a compassion that can’t be measured — a look in someone’s eyes that says, you’re not alone in this. A hug at the post office. And that, more than anything, gives you the courage to keep going.

Despite everything, I find I am profoundly grateful these days. For the medical teams who care with such skill and heart. For the friends who check in without fail. For a community that shows what it means to truly look after one another. For the web of care that stretches far beyond the walls of any hospital.

In the end, the story of my treatment isn’t just about medicine. It’s about a community that heals together — an Island that turns compassion into action, and care into hope.       

Jay Grossman is an NHL sports agent and lives in Chilmark.