My name is Giancarlo. I am a 40-year-old male who lives in Seattle with his wife and English Bulldog. I was diagnosed with an ependymoma in the fourth ventricle in February 2022.
I was diagnosed by happenstance and did not have any symptoms. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed in the emergency department, where the providers had never seen this type of tumor and didn’t have much information on it. My uncle died of glioblastoma, so when I was told they found a mass in my brain, I thought the worst.
Ironically, I work in medical device sales and sell neurological devices, and our company founder is one of the most prominent epileptologists at Stanford. I sent him my report right away, and he explained everything to me in great detail while I was waiting to be transferred to the main hospital, where neurosurgical procedures were performed.
My story is one of advocating for yourself because they wanted to rush me into surgery right away while there was no need. The surgeon who was going to perform my surgery was young and hadn’t worked on too many fourth ventricle tumors. Due to my connections within my field, I secured an appointment with Seattle’s best neurosurgeon, who performed my surgery. He was able to achieve total resection. I have an excellent prognosis and feel blessed to share my story and help people who were in my predicament. This is a relatively rare tumor and there aren’t too many resources out there.
