Gabe Ortiz’s terminal illness and declining health

Gabe Ortiz’s terminal illness transforms an already close godfather–goddaughter bond into a conflict over care, autonomy, and the prospect of death. Diagnosed with diabetes, Gabe refuses treatment from Indian Health Service physicians and manages his condition on his own terms. As his health declines, Lani’s fear that he may die before she can get home makes his choices painfully immediate, but she cannot make him accept the care she believes he needs.

Diagnosis and Chosen Care

Gabe had been diagnosed with diabetes a few months before Brandon Walker visited him in late April. The disease was so prevalent on the reservation that it was known as the Papago Plague. Gabe, a student of Christian Science, had answered the summons to become a Tohono O’odham medicine man only reluctantly, in middle age. His response to illness therefore arose at the intersection of two commitments: his Christian Science beliefs and his work as a traditional healer.

He refused the services of Indian Health Service physicians rather than submit to what he regarded as being poked full of holes. Instead, he tried to manage his diabetes through diet and exercise, alongside a regimen of treatments combining Christian Science and Native American elements. The account identifies the mixture but does not specify each treatment. His refusal is not presented as a lack of awareness that he is ill: Gabe understands the gravity of his condition, even as he rejects the medical care Lani wants for him.

That difference in judgment had already distressed Lani when she learned of the diagnosis while home for Christmas vacation from her pre-med studies in North Dakota. Visiting Gabe and Wanda Ortiz at their home in Sells, she argued that he should be under a doctor’s care and was angry that he would not consider it. Brandon counseled her that Gabe had to deal with his illness in his own way, rather than in hers. Lani’s objection, however, was rooted not only in a disagreement about treatment but in the thought that he could die and leave the family when, as she saw it, he did not have to.

A Worsening Condition

By the time Brandon returned to see Gabe in late April, the change was stark. At Christmas dinner at Gates Pass, Gabe had leaned heavily on a walker; now he sat in a wheelchair. Although the noonday sun was warm, a blanket covered his lap and was tucked behind his legs. He had lost the corpulence associated with his nickname and looked shriveled, old, and thin-skinned. When he woke, he looked past Brandon and asked who was there. Brandon realized that Gabe was completely blind.

Gabe met the discovery with humor before acknowledging its cost. He joked that he was as blind as Looks at Nothing used to be, and wondered whether blindness was a medicine-man rule that S’ab Neid Pi Has had forgotten to tell him. The joke does not erase the severity of his decline: his old walker has given way to a wheelchair, and he can no longer recognize a close friend by sight. But it shows Gabe still addressing his circumstances in his own voice, rather than letting the illness be described only by those around him.

The exchange soon turns from humor to a plain admission. Gabe says that he is old and dying. Brandon tells him that Lani is worried and wants to be there to help. Gabe knows what kind of help she will want: a hospital stay, shots, and pills. He refuses to accept those interventions, not even for her. Brandon does not try to disguise the disagreement or promise that Gabe will change his mind; he accepts that the decision is Gabe’s, even as he recognizes the pain it causes his daughter.

Lani’s Fear and the Family’s Concern

Gabe’s illness reaches Lani partly through distance and uncertainty. Away at school, she had a nagging sense that something was terribly wrong back home and assumed Gabe’s illness was the source of her unease. No one seemed willing to tell her what was really happening, so she turned to a duajida to seek an answer. The episode connects her traditional spiritual practice with a very practical need: she is separated from a gravely ill godfather and lacks reliable information about his condition.

Lani and Gabe had always been especially close. He and Wanda were her godparents, and the bond made his refusal of treatment feel to Lani like a threat of imminent loss, not an abstract choice about medical care. In her earlier reaction, she became tearful at the prospect of his death. Brandon answered that death is unavoidable for everyone, but his reminder does not settle the more urgent question in Lani’s mind: whether Gabe will still be alive when she can return.

Brandon’s visit carries that concern into the present. Diana Ladd cannot accompany him because a deadline is pressing, but she asks him to call Lani afterward and tell her how Gabe is doing. She understands that the news will not be good and believes Lani knows how serious the illness is. Lani’s deepest worry, Diana explains, is that Gabe will not last long enough for her to get home; she wants to be there for him as he had been there for her.

Meaning of the Illness

Gabe’s decline is rendered through concrete changes in how he moves through the world: the walker replaced by a wheelchair, his lost sight, his altered body, and his need to ask who has entered the room. These details make the illness a lived condition rather than a diagnosis alone. At the same time, the narrative keeps his decisions distinct from those changes. He is seriously ill and dependent on others in new ways, but he remains firm about which forms of care he will accept.

The conflict is therefore not simply between medicine and denial. Lani’s medical training and fear lead her to want professional treatment; Gabe’s beliefs and chosen way of managing illness lead him to refuse it. Brandon’s counsel recognizes both the family’s distress and Gabe’s authority over his own response. The unresolved tension between those positions gives the illness its emotional force: love makes Lani want to intervene, while love and respect require the others to face Gabe’s refusal and the possibility that his time is short.