I know there are many weeks left to healing, but if you didn’t tell me I had brain surgery six days ago I’d be ready to roll into work on Monday morning at full speed.

The tumor tissue samples resulting from surgery were generally favorable—this is good news, but also not what we were expecting. We continue to see grade 2 astrocytoma—which is amazing, but also kind of unbelievable after 14 years of living with a malignant brain tumor. The tumor board decided to proceed with further analysis of the tissue; updated results will be available in the coming week(s).

My tumor is growing and I likely have a more aggressive cancer now. Here's what’s happening, an overview of my medical next steps, and how I am feeling in this moment.

There is no rulebook for some of the things I have had to recently learn. New exercises were invented. I designed a strategy to learn to drive a car again, which involves Gran Turismo 7 for the PlayStation.

What is harder: starting something new, or returning to something you used to do after an absence?

Having an “insult” to the brain is not a reflection on me, the relationships I’ve developed over my entire life, or my approach to doing the hard work.

It was nobody’s fault. if anything, it was a perfect storm. I was excited to listen to the patient perspectives on research section of today’s meeting, convened by the NCI Patient Engagement in Cancer Genome Sequencing Network. I was supposed to be in “listen only” mode, and no one was expecting me to comment since I just had brain surgery 14 days ago. But the moderator asked me for my thoughts on a topic; I paused and didn’t know what to do. No one said anything, then the moderator again asked what I thought. Well, ugh, I thought, so I unmuted and turned my camera on to attempt to answer the question.

Hello everyone! It's me, Liz! I'm officially back from the other side of surgery, although my language and math skills are still very much on the mend. I hope you can bear with me as I relay this very personal update.

Literally everything I have learned over the last 7 years of working in healthcare applies to my current situation. I can’t help but both be in my body as “the patient” but also observing outside of myself, giggling a little and learning a lot.

Plans are in the works for me to have my third brain surgery sometime soon, likely in the next few weeks. Definitely in October 2021. It has been 12 years since my last.

In medicine there is a saying: See one, do one, teach one. This paper was a do one experience.