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April is Autism Awareness Month

An Update From Barbara

I want to thank so many of you who have kindly inquired how I'm doing. Since last spring, I've written three times at 13.7 about my cancer diagnosis.

  • Facing Cancer With A Robot Surgeon By My Side (May 2013)
  • Is Cancer A Gift? (July 2013)
  • A Messy Sort Of Gratitude: Giving Thanks For Radiation (November 2013)
  • It's time for an update.

    I'm incredibly happy to tell you that I have finished the whole prescribed course of chemotherapy and radiation and, just yesterday, underwent a PET scan. Within three hours my primary oncologist was on the phone to me, exclaiming, "It looks wonderful; go celebrate!"

    My celebrations these days are slow-paced (months of recovery ahead still, from the treatments), but joyous. I'm one of the lucky ones though, of course, I'll need vigilant medical monitoring for years to come.

    To the 13.7 community, thank you for caring. It has meant a great deal to me.


    Barbara's most recent book on animals will be released in paperback in April. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: @bjkingape

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Barbara J. King is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. She is a Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. With a long-standing research interest in primate behavior and human evolution, King has studied baboon foraging in Kenya and gorilla and bonobo communication at captive facilities in the United States.