StrykerStrong

For those of you who don’t know Christie, I’d like to introduce her. Christie is a daughter, sister, mother, fiancé, and a Honey. She has three daughters, ages 27, 23, and 13, as well as two grandchildren, ages 6 and 2.

Within the last few years, she started a new career full of passion as a real estate agent. She found the love of her life, Mitch, with plans to get married this coming February. Christie is a light! She has numerous friends and family across the nation that she loves dearly.

On November 8, she was found unresponsive at work and transported to a hospital, where she was placed on a ventilator for a few days. Three days later, we were told she had an inoperable brain tumor. With the help and support of family, she was transferred to UCSF and later underwent a craniotomy to remove the “hot spot” of the tumor in the right frontal lobe. Unfortunately, the biopsy revealed everyone’s worst nightmare, grade 4 glioblastoma.

The Stryker family is all too familiar with brain tumors, so for this reason, doctors believe there is a genetic link that makes this rare cancer even more of a rare situation. The tumor has spread throughout the middle of her brain (the corpus callosum), and that area is inoperable. However, she is currently waiting to start radiation treatments 5 days a week for 6 weeks as well as chemotherapy in hopes of making the tumor dormant. We also have hope she will qualify for a clinical trial once radiation is complete!

As of now, she’s still healing from the craniotomy while experiencing slight issues with short-term memory, but doctors are hopeful this will improve with treatment. This cancer is not curable, and the prognosis is scary, but she has the best care available to her with an amazing support system as well as God on her side. There’s a long road ahead but she knows this is her testimony now.

TAGGED WITH: brain cancer, glioblastoma

Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.