News of Bruce Willis’ rapidly deteriorating health sent shockwaves through Hollywood and the rest of the world, but none more so than family – including his daughter, Tallulah Willis.

The Die Hard actor was once a staple in the action genre, but having taken a step back from acting in 2022, he has since been forced into retirement, having been diagnosed with dementia, or more specifically, frontotemporal degeneration (FTD).

According to the Mayo Clinic, the condition affects the frontal and temporal lobe in the brain – the areas of the brain associated with personality, behavior, and language.

Tallulah has since spoken out about how her 69-year-old father’s diagnosis affected her personally, as she spoke candidly in an interview with Vogue back in 2023.

“My family announced in early 2022 that Bruce Willis was suffering from aphasia, a brain-mediated inability to speak or to understand speech, and we learned earlier this year that that symptom was a feature of frontotemporal dementia, a progressive neurological disorder that chips away at his cognition and behavior day by day. But I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time,” she explained.

Bruce Willis as John McClane in ‘Die Hard’ (20th Century Studios)

“It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up! Die Hard messed with Dad’s ears’. Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally.

“He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me. Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father.”

She continued: “I admit that I have met Bruce’s decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of. The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it.”

Tallulah Willis described her relationship with her father as ‘the beginning of grief’ (Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

Tallulah went on to explain how she had suffered with body dysmorphia, which is a mental health condition where people are consumed by the worry of their appearance.

She explained how her dad still recognizes her, ‘give or take a bad day’, and she now tries to ‘savor that time’ that she spends with him.

Before heartbreakingly explaining how she feels that ‘this is the beginning of grief’.

“There’s this little creature changing by the hour, and there’s this thing happening with my dad that can shift so quickly and unpredictably,” she added.

“It feels like a unique and special time in my family, and I’m just so glad to be here for it.”

A mom was left devastated after learning that her two-year-old daughter had a brain tumour, despite doctors previously telling her it was strep.

In 2023, Gracelyn Stiffler complained of feeling unwell and ‘started regressing’, her mother, Catherine Owens, explained.

Gracelyn was just two at the time, and when the youngster said she’d hit her head and started vomiting, Catherine rushed her to the emergency room after fearing Gracelyn had concussion.

But there was no bump or any indication that Gracelyn had hit her head, so doctors decided to test her for several illnesses.

Gracelyn first started feeling unwell in 2023 (@ocatherine02/TikTok)

This is when the two-year-old tested positive for strep throat, which is what medical professionals put Gracelyn’s reason for feeling unwell down to.

Ahead of the positive strep test, one of the key things that Gracelyn had been complaining about was headaches — specifically at a point behind her ear.

As well as a headache, Catherine, who lives in West Monroe, Louisiana, with her family, noticed that in the summer of 2023 Gracelyn had started walking with her head titled and that the toddler was off-balance.

She’d also started having ‘accidents’, said her mom, despite Gracelyn being potty trained since she was 18 months old.

It was after her strep diagnosis that Gracelyn became more unwell, sparking Catherine to take her to a pediatrician, as well as another trip to the emergency room.

The toddler ended up needing emergency surgery (@ocatherine02/TikTok)

Ultimately Catherine demanded that her daughter had a CT scan, which revealed the news that no parent ever wants to hear — Gracelyn had masses on her brain.

The toddler was then rushed for an MRI scan, which revealed that she had a Grade 2 ependymoma (a type of brain tumor) that needed operating on quickly.

Following a nine-hour surgery, doctors removed as much of the tumor as they could.

While the tumor wasn’t cancerous, Gracelyn’s doctors said it was ‘as close as it can be to cancerous’.

“It was intense,” Catherine said of the surgery to TODAY. “They were confident that they had gotten (the tumor) all out.”

But it was later revealed that Gracelyn still had some tumor left nestled into her brain and she needed more surgery to remove it before she underwent radiotherapy.

Gracelyn’s mom has been documenting her journey on social media (@ocatherine02/TikTok)

In light of their experience, Catherine is encouraging other parents to trust their gut when it comes to their child’s health.

“I knew something was seriously wrong with Gracelyn, my mom gut,” she says. “I want everyone to know I’m on their side and I’m rooting for them.”

You can follow Gracelyn’s journey via her mom’s TikTok page @ocatherine02, where she documents the family’s day-to-day lives.

Two brothers have been diagnosed with dementia while in their twenties, but are turning their ‘pain into power’.

Jordan and Cian Adams started noticing ‘significant changes’ in their mom’s behavior, and after several ‘incorrect diagnoses’, she was eventually told she had early-onset Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) – the same condition actor Bruce Willis has.

But little did the 28 and 23-year-old brothers from Worcestershire, UK know at the time, they’d end up facing the same ‘horrible’ diagnosis within five years of one another.

When Jordan and Cian’s mom, Geraldine, became ‘less outgoing,’ her mood ‘lowered’, and she began experiencing ‘numerous lapses in her memory’, the family knew ‘something wasn’t quite right’.

A JustGiving page raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK organized by Jordan continues: “After months of back and forth with different GPs and consultants, an incorrect diagnoses of depression, different mental health issues including a silent stroke, our mom was eventually told that she had ‘early-onset’ Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) on the 23rd June 2010, and it was later that evening that our dad had to break the news to us that mom was terminally ill and that her health was going to deteriorate over a 6–10-year period.”

As a result of the ‘incredibly tough responsibility’ that lay on him, Jordan and Cian’s dad, Glenn, didn’t tell them the condition was ‘hereditary’ and that they and their sister Kennedy had ‘a 50 percent chance of inheriting the same FTD’ when they reached their mom’s age.

Sadly, Geraldine’s condition deteriorated, and she became unable to drive, would get ‘confused as to wear she was’, and eventually became ‘bed-bound’ until she passed away on March 14, 2016 at the age of 52.

After finding out the condition is hereditary, Jordan and Cian’s sister Kennedy went and got tested and it was confirmed she ‘would not have to live with the same dementia’ as their mother, and then Jordan and Cian decided to get tested too.

The brothers were both diagnosed with FTD within five years of each other (Instagram/ @jord_adams)

In September 2018, Jordan discovered he was ‘a carrier of the faulty copy and he would have to live with the same FTD’ as their mom. In February 2023, Cian discovered he too is a carrier.

FTD not only leads to memory loss, but can cause behavioural changes, alongside a decline in speech and language ability and also mobility.

The JustGiving page continues: “Both brothers will have to live with FTD in their lifetime, most likely becoming symptomatic in their early 40s and losing their lives within 10 years of diagnosis.”

However, Jordan told Mail Plus while the brothers may ultimately have ’15 good summers’ left, rather than viewing the diagnosis as a death sentence, they’re trying to see it as having been given a ‘license to live’, making them ‘determined to make the most of the time’ they have and to ‘raise awareness and funds to fight this horrible disease’.

Earlier this year, the brothers ran the length of the UK to ‘raise the bar in our efforts to raise awareness and funds for groundbreaking research which can ultimately lead to a cure for all types of dementia’.

The brothers are raising important awareness (JustGiving)

In a post to Facebook, Jordan wrote: “We each have experienced depths of depression, growing anxiety & the overflowing anger of injustice. Why us? […] But instead of wallowing in self pity. Cian like me, made the decision that day to turn that pain into power and I could not be more proud of how he has responded.

“Together, we are turning that nightmare hand life dealt us into a dream to raise 1 Million Pounds towards research that we hope will find a cure and put a stop to families all over the world having to go through what we have endured.

“So here we are 18 months on from life kicking us in the bollocks again, saying we’re still standing. We carried the boats. They don’t know me son. Best of all…. we’re just getting started.”

If you’ve been affected by dementia or Alzheimer’s and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact the Alzheimer’s Association via 800.272.3900 open 24 hours seven days a week.

A light at the end of the tunnel? Voices? An Instagram-style highlight reel of memories?

What happens in the moments before we die has been long pondered.

However, many people who’ve had near-death experiences have since opened up about what they saw and felt, including one man who was a self-proclaimed ‘true atheist’ but had a change of heart after nearly dying in hospital.

American Jose Hernandez recounted his life-changing experience during a recent interview with YouTube channel Shaman Oaks.

According to Hernandez, it all started with a routine change of electrical wires as part of his job as an engineer.

Hernandez told Shaman Oaks: “When I had my experience I was a true Atheist. I am an engineer. I was up on a bucket truck running some electrical lines.

“We were running late. The guy that was with me, my partner, was more worried about electrocuting me up on top, so he was more worried looking up and he just kind of bumped into a tree. I hit the bucket and I broke all my ribs […] on my right side and I was sent to an emergency room.”

Jose Hernandez detailed watching his own body receive CPR (YouTube/ShamanOaks)

After being transferred to the hospital, he stopping breathing and doctors and nurses rushed into his room to try and save him.

He added: “I started thinking about god, saying, ‘If you get me through this event I will change’.”

And it is at this point Hernandez claims to have noticed spirits as his ‘real self’ battled for survival.

He explained: “And then I noticed this shadow, by the door. And it just stood there. Then I started thinking ‘you know what, I’ve had such a hard and difficult life, maybe it’s okay to let go.’

“I kinda said it’s okay to die. And the minute I said that, or thought that, the shadow just moved.

Hernandez now works as an artist who taps into his spiritual experiences for inspiration (Facebook/Jose Hernandez Inner Immersion)

“In my mind I could see its hand reaching out to me, and it just touched my toe. And the minute it touched my toe I just felt this tremendous sense of relief, and relaxation, peace and love and calm. I was in bliss.”

According to Hernandez, he then watched doctors do CPR on his body in an attempt to save his life while the ‘shadow’ spoke to him.

“Then I found myself being lifted into the corner of the room. And I was observing the effort by the CPR team that was trying to save my life.

“I heard the voice next to be say ‘think of the your body as a car, and that car has life five million miles on it, and there’s nothing we can do to fix it anymore. So you have to now say goodbye to your body.

“And then the voice said to me ‘okay it’s time for us to move on.'”

After ‘falling’ down a black hole, the artist goes on to reveal that he was reunited with his late father – in what he thought to be heaven.

He added: “When I met my dad on the other side, I realised that sometimes we may not be able to say something here, [but] we’re gonna be able to say it somewhere else.”

NDE’s are very common occurrences for people who have to be revived, or are at ‘death’s door’. The imagery many people describe – a light at the end of the tunnel – is often quoted as evidence that consciousness exists beyond the physical realm, although medical professionals have another explanation.

Writing in the Irish Times, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry William Reville posits that NDEs probably show the activity of the dying brain as oxygen levels drop and carbon dioxide levels surge.

Reville states: “NDE reports of light at the end of a dark tunnel could simply reflect oxygen levels falling in the retina, starting at the periphery and moving inwards towards the centre, producing tunnel vision.”