Welcome to our CaringBridge website, which we are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place about my brain cancer.
On Tuesday, November 1, 2016 my intern found me in my office at the McClung Museum having a seizure. She acted quickly and got my co-worker Chris, who kept me safe and called the ambulance. At the University of Tennessee Hospital, they ran a bunch of tests on me and found out that I have a pretty large (4.3 x 3.4 x 3.7 cm) brain tumor on the periphery of my right anterior frontal lobe. Fortunately, it is in a good spot for excision, and there wasn't any swelling or bleeding around it. Initially they thought it was possibly a ganglioglioma, oligodendroglioma, or a dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNET), but we eventually found out that it was a malignant glioma––a stage 2 diffuse astrocytoma.
People came out of the woodwork to help us. Friends and family members contacted the best neurosurgeons across the country on our behalf, and I ended up at Mass General Hospital for my craniotomy.
As we move ahead, Garriy, Luca, and my larger family are really going to need everyone's support. We appreciate your words of encouragement more than anything, but as we know more, we'll report back here, and as we know more about our schedule, we'll keep everyone up to date about how they might help.
Thank you, thank you for everything that you do and will continue to do!
CaringBridge is a nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Learn more about CaringBridge.
