I've learned a lot about myself in the last six weeks. I've learned how I respond to the worst news anyone in my family ever received. At 27 years old, my brother Aaron was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the appendix eight days before Christmas. It is stage four, and doctors have yet to give him a prognosis, because it depends on how his body responds to the months of chemotherapy he is preparing to undergo.

Wham! My family was blindsided. A Wednesday morning trip to the emergency room to check out stomach pains turned into a diagnosis most people under 50 wouldn't even consider. But cancer doesn't play favorites. That's what I've always heard, but I guess I just never thought it would happen to anyone in my family.

So I had to ask myself how I was going to respond. What am I going to do about this? What can I do about this? What does Aaron need from me?

Since the diagnosis, doctors surgically removed 80 to 90 percent of the tumors in his abdomen, including five liters of fluid and a couple organs, but they couldn't remove everything they wanted to get, so his road to recovery is long and uncertain. I felt awful. Somehow, I thought we should have known something sooner. What I thought was a beer belly from too many Saturday softball-game brews was actually a slow-growing mass in his stomach.

CANCER BENEFIT Details Sunday, Feb. 29 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Champions Grill & Bar 5039 Crookshank Rd. in Westwood All proceeds benefit Aaron and family Raffle, auction with great prizes

But you have to snap back to reality. The fact is, we didn't know, and we can't do anything about that now anyway. All I can do at this point is try to help him get better, but it is still very hard to handle, because first I have to accept that this is even happening. One of the remarkable things about human nature is our ability to deny our own mortality. We don't think about dying every day, and when we think about it, we don't think about living either. We are too caught up in the daily happenings of life -- bills, school, work, what's on television tonight -- to realize how quickly that can all be taken away. So it is difficult to accept the mortality of my brother, who is only eight months older than me. Why should death be a possibility at this stage of life?

That Wednesday morning, my biggest concern was finishing my Christmas shopping. By that night, those material things no longer mattered. I know it sounds trite, but it really is true. My priorities changed, and I could clearly see the many things I take for granted every day.

As bad as it is to see him in this condition, it's equally difficult to see how his two daughters, ages 5 and 2, have to go through this. They don't understand cancer, and they don't understand surgery. All they know is that their daddy was gone for 17 days and they couldn't go see him. They've been shipped from relative to relative, they haven't had a "normal" day since December and they won't have one anytime soon. They don't understand why he has tubes in his stomach, and why he can't play with them the way he used to, but hopefully they will be his motivation to get better.

I told him I was proud of him. I'd like to say I know how I would handle the same situation, but I don't, and hopefully I'll never have to find out. Through it all, he has been extremely brave, and I am proud of the way he has taken on this challenge.

I wish I could do more for him, especially physically. I wish I could get up and walk for him, or eat for him, or help him go back to work. He'll be off for at least six months, and with the two kids, his wife can't work right now either, so what I can do is help him financially.

I decided weeks ago to hold a benefit for Aaron and his family, because I felt like it was the only thing I could do to help him while he lay in that hospital bed. Since this is the best thing I can do for them, I'm going at it 100 percent, and with donations from several generous businesses and organizations (especially Champions Grill and Bar in Westwood), it's going to be a great success. It's amazing to see how friends, family and the community come together in times of need. As I said before, you don't know how you'll react to a situation until you're in it. Well, we're in it, and so far, we are all handling it fairly well. But we have a long way to go, and we still need help. Cancer is attacking Aaron's body, but we will not let it attack his mind and spirit. We are standing up to the biggest bully in our neighborhood, and we will prevail.

John Drees is the assignment manager for WLWT Eyewitness News 5.