Four Diagnoses in Nine Months. He’s Still at the Brink. | Merrick Walter

At the Brink with Erica Brinker · Oct 7, 2026 · 59m

Merrick Walter grew up surfing and skating in Los Angeles, swam breaststroke in college, studied Russian, got recruited by the CIA (and said no), earned an MBA from Thunderbird and built a career in international education across multiple countries and continents. He was the kind of person who showed up to places, learned the language and found the Georgian restaurant nobody else knew about.

In the spring of 2015, everything changed. Within nine months, Merrick was diagnosed with a blood disorder, a bicuspid aortic valve, an aortic aneurysm and neuroendocrine cancer. He has had more than a…