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...
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...
What do you want me to learn at the National Brain Tumor Society Summit?
NOTE: I am no longer accepting questions to bring to the NBTS Summit. Later this week I am attending the National Brain Tumor Society’s (NBTS) annual summit in Boston, MA. According to the website, the Summit brings together “Patients and families, advocates, researchers, clinicians, and government and industry professionals who will connect, share the latest...
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...
What I really do… living with a brain tumor
Just made this gem. Feel free to steal and share with your social networks.
Lobbying with my emotions: brain tumor advocacy is conjuring up all kinds of dirt
A typical young adult cancer experience So there I was, lobbying members of Congress on the importance of brain tumor research, funding, and parity for oral forms of chemotherapy, when suddenly I got emotional. I didn’t think it would happen to me. The majority of my cancer experience has been tear-free like a Johnson &...
Brain tumor advocacy in full swing: it’s time to educate Congress
Apologies: This was typed on my iPad and I didn’t have time to do much editing. I’m in Washington DC today to do something pretty amazing. I’m working with the National Brain Tumor Society to lobby Congress for two things: Lobby our elected leaders to focus on brain tumor research Ask for “chemo parity”...
MRI one-year post Temodar chemotherapy
It has been one year since I was on Temodar chemotherapy and the results are in. [drumroll] My brain tumor is stable. See for yourself… The scan on the left is my brain today, and the scan on the right is my brain one year ago after completing 24-months of Temodar. Since I am psychic,...
Brain surgery: the inside story (pun slightly intended)
I volunteer as a “Mentor Angel” with a group called Imerman Angels. This organization carefully matches and individually pairs people touched by cancer (a cancer fighter, survivor or caregiver) with someone who has fought and survived the same type of cancer (a Mentor Angel). I’ve been volunteering with Imerman Angels for nearly six months, and before...
Screw “watch and wait”… keep fighting
What to do while you’re waiting for your cancer to come back It sounds pessimistic, but let’s be real: even when you are moving on with your life and enjoying survivorship or remission, you still worry about cancer from time to time. Now that I am done with treatment I feel somewhat powerless. Brain surgeries...
The birth of the brain tumor hashtag on Twitter (and how it was inspired by the breast cancer community) #btsm
When it comes to team spirit, the breast cancer community has got it going on. This community certainly has enough patients, survivors and caregivers to give the community a boost when breast cancer accounts for a little more than 10 percent of all cancer diagnoses each year. And when it comes to advocacy, the brain...
