Not in a dramatic, cinematic way, no warning music, no slow motion. Just a day that started like every other day, before the ground quietly shifted beneath my feet.
Before that day, my life was full of ordinary plans. Lacrosse, school, relationships, and weekends I assumed would always come. I measured time in small things. My body was something I trusted without question. My brain was simply mine, doing what it had always done.
I am originally from Minnesota, but I was down in Missouri finishing up school and D2 lacrosse at Missouri Western. I was at a football tailgate with my friend, and we got into sumo suits and went up for a chest bump. I lost my balance and fell backwards and lost consciousness. I was rushed to the ER down in Missouri. They put me in a CT machine to make sure that I didn’t have a brain bleed. They found a spot, so they opted for an MRI.
Because I was down in Missouri, my old college coach came with me to the ER, and the doctor broke the news to her first. Then to my family. Then eventually to me. I remember the pause before the doctor spoke.
Words like tumor, treatment, biopsy, and unknown entered my life and refused to leave.
The Diagnosis
They told me that I had a 5cm brain tumor in the middle of my brain by my spinal cord, pons, and cerebellum.
At first, everything felt unreal, like I was standing just outside my own body, watching someone else receive the news. I learned quickly that shock can be quiet. It can look like nodding or asking practical questions. It can come later as well, like at a friend’s dorm, at lacrosse practice, or even out at a party.
When I was eventually discharged, I went back to Minnesota and down to Mayo Clinic. At the initial appointment,s they said that they could do a spinal tap to see if any DNA had shed from the tumor to the cerebrospinal fluid. So I got that done in September of 2021, and they sent it out to New York to see if they could find some answers.
Well, that came back as inconclusive, so in January of 2022, I opted for a brain biopsy at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Coming out of surgery, my whole right side of my body was weak, so they decided to keep me in the ICU for a couple days. It took me many days of PT and OT and trying to understand why I was in this situation. After I got all my strength back I returned to Missouri to finish out the lacrosse season, which at the time I didn’t know, would unfortunately be my last.
The Biopsy Results
At my next appointment after my biopsy, they read the biopsy results, and it turned out to be a glioma Not Other Specified, which my parents and I did not understand, but Dr. Uhm at Mayo explained it well to us. He used the analogy that in a library, there is a spot for every book due to the Dewey decimal system, but your tumor just doesn’t want to fit into any certain spot. That was hard to hear, because we can’t just remove it, even though previous neurosurgeons said it would be “how detrimental” if they did, and now they can’t even tell what it is? That moment to me almost didn’t feel real.
In August of 2022, I completed 30 rounds of proton beam radiation therapy down in Rochester, and that went smoothly, and after that, my check-ups went every two months to every three months to every six months. In 2023, I graduated with my first bachelor’s degree. And then on June 14, 2024, I got the news that no one wants to hear, “Your tumor is progressing rapidly, and we want you start chemotherapy asap.”
At the time, I was only 23 years old, in the middle of getting my BSN, and just started a relationship with my boyfriend. I had to ask if he wanted a family when he was older because I had to get my eggs removed. I felt the same way that I did on the day that I found out about my tumor, so it felt like déjà vu. So, after a couple of tough conversations and rounds of hormones. On July 4, 2024, I got my eggs removed, and by July 8, I started my first round of oral temozolomide, or TMZ.
I was supposed to complete six rounds of the TMZ, but it seemed like at every check up nothing good would ever come up and I was beginning to become weaker, more tired, and many other things by December 2024. My platelets were down to like 15, and they were going to do a blood transfusion, but when they checked again, my platelets had already jumped to 20, so they wanted to wait another day to see if they jumped anymore. After that whole mess, they switched me to a medication called Avastin, which is an infusion every three weeks, and has brought me the best results I could’ve asked for. Flair spots have decreased, blood supply to the tumor has decreased, and I am currently still on Avastin. It’s difficult because they still aren’t sure how long they want me to have these infusions.
My Journey
My brain tumor journey hasn’t been a straight line. It’s been a series of waiting rooms and scan days, of IV poles and infusion chairs, of calendars marked in three-week and six-week increments. It’s learning new routines I never asked for. It’s hearing that things are “stable” and realizing how much hope can live inside such a small word.
Treatment days are exhausting in ways that don’t always show on the outside. There’s the physical toll, the fatigue, the way my body feels foreign at times, but there’s also the mental weight. Knowing that the very place that holds my thoughts, memories, and personality is also the place that changed everything.
I’ve learned that strength doesn’t always look like bravery. Sometimes it looks like showing up when you’re scared. Sometimes it looks like crying in the car and still walking into the appointment. Sometimes it’s letting people help, even when you’ve always been the helper.
There are days when I grieve the version of myself who didn’t think twice about the future. And there are days when I feel more alive than I ever did before, because when your life is interrupted, you begin to notice it more. The small joys become louder: a good scan, a normal day, laughter that surprises you.
I don’t know how long this journey will last. I don’t have all the answers. I’ve had to make peace with uncertainty in ways I never imagined.
But everything changed one day, but not everything ended that day. I am more than my diagnosis. I’m learning, every day, how to live in the space between fear and hope. And somehow, even in the middle of all this, life continues to surprise me, with its softness, its strength, and its insistence on going on.
