McKinnon Galloway was 16 when neurofibromatosis type 2 — a genetic disorder that grows tumors on nerves — entered her life. Now 32, she's navigated four brain surgeries, lost her hearing, endured 16 years of chemotherapy, and faced chemotherapy again this year. She's also become one of the most clearheaded people you'll encounter.
She doesn't talk about her life like it's a tragedy to overcome. She talks about it like someone who's learned something most of us spend decades searching for: the difference between a pain-free life and a meaningful one.
The moment everything shifted
After her third brain surgery, Galloway lost her hearing overnight. In a hearing world where she'd never learned sign language, the isolation was immediate. But at a conference, she discovered a transcription app — technology that had just come to market — and showed it to a mother of a deaf son.
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Start Your News DetoxThe next day, that mother returned in tears. She and her son had just had their first successful conversation in ten years. "My soul overflowed with love, fulfillment, and happiness," Galloway recalls. "I have been through hell and back, and I thought I had nothing left to give. And here, because of my trials, was the reason I was able to give."
That moment didn't heal her illness. It reframed it. Her suffering stopped being isolated pain and became purpose.
What she actually does with hopelessness
Galloway doesn't pretend despair doesn't exist. She has six spinal tumors and over 50 MRIs, most with outcomes she didn't want. She cries. She feels the weight of it.
But she's learned the balance. "Feel what you feel, then wipe your tears, stand back up and move forward," she says. "It's not healthy to hold it in. Cry it out." The trap, she's noticed, is either bottling everything up or wallowing indefinitely. She gives herself grace to break down, then refuses to give herself an excuse to stay there.
After her third brain surgery — the one that nearly killed her when her brain began swelling during COVID — she was lying in a hospital bed, deaf, with an eye rolling inward. Her mother and a close friend arrived. The nurses helped them set up a makeshift spa day with hospital towels and washcloths. "That is now such a core memory for me," she says. "It was the moment I realized, the day is what you make it."
The science backs this up
Research increasingly supports what Galloway has lived into. A 2022 study found a direct link between higher purpose and longer lifespan. A 2023 study showed that helping others — what researchers call "pay-it-forward" approaches — actually improves health, reduces depression, and increases physical activity. Community connectedness and shared vulnerability have measurable health benefits.
It's not magical thinking. It's how the human nervous system responds when we move from isolation to contribution. When we stop asking "why is this happening to me" and start asking "what can I do with this."
Galloway's perspective didn't require her to become someone who doesn't struggle. It required her to stop waiting for the struggle to end before she started living. Most of us get there eventually, if we're lucky. She got there at 32, with four brain surgeries and a clarity that makes you wonder what the rest of us are waiting for.
