Top 10 reasons I am a brain tumor advocate
This week I joined with hundreds of my fellow brain tumor advocates from around the country in Washington, DC, to attend the annual “Head to the Hill” lobby day organized by the National Brain Tumor Society. This is the second year in a row I’ve traveled to our nation’s capital to educate our members of...
Support groups are not for everyone
I’ve been in a state of brain cancer reflection this week as I prepare for two upcoming presentations related to patient engagement through digital media. (I know, I’m a nerd.) Then I remembered this day… The bus About four weeks after my first brain surgery I decided to go to my first cancer support group...
How the rest of the medical community deals with cancer
Cancer has been following me around the past two weeks. I had my routine lady-doctor exam and all is well. Then the OB/GYN asked how everything was going with… um, you know… the brain cancer thing. “It’s the same,” I told her. My primary care doctor sent me to see a new physical therapist for...
Your friend, Logan
I was at the gym working on my “clean and jerk” (which looks like this graphic), when the song “Complex“ started playing through the sound system. The band was Little Tin Frog. The drummer was Logan Whitehurst, a long time friend, fellow drummer, and the most well-respected musician/awesome guy/creative talent among my peers between 1997 and the...
Students needed: specializing in the field of brain tumors
Coincidence? I think not! (But it probably is.) Since joining a new gym in mid-July I met a woman who lost her mom to a glioblastoma, a young man with a oglioastrocytoma who recently finished Temodar, and the woman who is the scheduler for the doctor who performed my shoulder surgery! Coincidence? Probably. And this,...
Questions submitted for the 2012 National Brain Tumor Society Summit
Before I left for the National Brain Tumor Society’s annual summit I asked The Liz Army blog readers if you had questions you would like me to ask doctors and health care professionals I would presumably meet at the event. Keep in mind, I had never attended an NBTS summit and I did not know...
Lift with your head: the other 90% of my brain
In the past I have viewed exercise as a chore. Repetitive weight lifting and mindless jogs on a treadmill were never my idea of fun. But I still have cancer in my brain–so I need to do something to feel like I am fighting back. I strongly believe in the power of advocacy as an important...
My movie moment: brain surgery
That which does not kill us makes us stronger. – Frederich Nietzsche If this is true, I am going to be a fucking genius. Four years ago today I had my first brain surgery. On that day I woke up in my boyfriend’s apartment with a shaved head, adhesive markers still firmly in place from the...
My brain: 16 months after Temodar
What’s the status from my latest brain MRI? No growth! Also, my new neuro-oncologist is proud I’ve started exercising. He mumbled something about exercise helping build a stronger immune system and remarked, “You’ve lost six pounds since you were last here.” What-what?! Say that again? Really? And oh yeah, a stronger immune system is also...
Back on the exercise wagon, for reals this time
I’ve always loved this Henry Rollins quote, Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp. As a long-time straight edger, it’s been easy to keep my blood “clean”. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. (Except for Temodar, I was HOOKED on that stuff.) <– inside joke for those...
Together we’re giant: forgetting about brain cancer for a day
Which team is the best in Major League Baseball? The San Francisco Giants, of course. If you’ve read more than a couple posts here on my blog you may have figured out that I am a Giants fan. And lately some of my posts have focused more on baseball than on cancer. But I’m in...
Baseball: the ultimate cancer therapy
I didn’t grow up in a family that was into sports. My annual exposure to sporting events was the Super Bowl, which was primarily an excuse to consume meatball subs and large amounts of French onion dip. I never played Little League. In high school my favorite P.E. class was singles tennis. I never had the...
