A response to the New York Times piece, “How McCain Got the Last Word Against Trump.”
Senator John McCain’s Funeral Planning was not about Politics but a Lesson on how to End Well
Engines Are Back On
Thank you all for the support after my last post about the rough start to treatment. I appreciate all the messages as well as food that has now filled my fridge! I've realized this has become the primary means most people receive updates regarding how I am feeling. After seeing a lot of people this …
Rough Seas: Confronting the “experimental” aspects of experimental treatment
Note: Anything I share in posts related to my treatment are my own personal experience. It does not reflect what may happen to someone else, or what others should do. More so, I share these posts as a glimpse into my experience living with brain cancer. Hopefully there are parts of my story that resonate, areas …
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Plan A (IDH2 Inhibitor) is a go: Precision Medicine and Privilege
In my last treatment post, Uncharted Waters: waiting for a treatment plan, I outlined three treatment options: Plan A: IDH2 Inhibitor Plan A-: Immunotherapy Plan B: Reirradiation and CCNU chemotherapy Over the past few weeks we have been waiting for two factors to determine which treatment plan I could do: insurance coverage and my genetic test …
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Team Jeremy @ The Bay Area Brain Tumor Walk!
The National Brain Tumor Society's 2018 Bay Area Brain Tumor Walk was amazing! Thank you to everyone who walked, donated, and supported Team Jeremy at this year's event. Together, we raised over $13,500 (UPDATE: $15,000)! It was truly special having my family as well as friends from all stages of my life (high school, college, …
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Uncharted Waters: waiting for a treatment plan
In my last post, Sailing New Seas: My Biopsy Results and The Need For a Cure, I recounted my experience receiving news that my tumor has evolved to a grade III anaplastic oligodendroglioma. Given this news, the path of treatment is uncertain. UCSF's tumor board had one recommendation while my doctors in Boston had an alternative view. Each opinion is equally reasonable. The difference lies in the fact that I am now in uncharted waters. There's no map navigating me to my destination. In fact, no one truly knows where we're heading. All I know after receiving my results was I needed to find a captain for my ship, so I headed back to Boston to see Yoda.
Sailing New Seas: My Biopsy Results and The Need For a Cure
On Monday, June 4th I had my neurooncology appointment at UCSF. Since being discharged from the hospital, my days have been pretty smooth: waking up, exercising a little, hitting an energy-wall, and relaxing. I mean how often do you get an excuse to binge-watch Netflix guilt free? As Monday approached though, I could feel the anxiety creeping throughout my body. It was the day I'd receive my biopsy results from the surgery.
A Week of Change (ending without a cane)
On Tuesday, May 22nd I walked into UCSF at 6:00am for an awake brain surgery unsure how the operation would go and in what condition I would wake up. A week later I walked without a cane to Zachary's Pizza in Oakland to eat out at dinner with my family. Grappling with this concept, finding …
How to Help
I am writing this the night before going into surgery, so before you read below on ways to help, please know that if we have crossed paths in life, you have already provided me more than I could ever ask for. I believe our lives are a tapestry of the people we meet and the …
Treatment Meetings and Plan
Warning: This post is long! This is not the usual post where I dive into the emotional aspects of my experience. Rather, this is a pretty cut and dry description of my three weeks of meetings and calls to develop a treatment plan. During my 2014 recurrence, I wrote a similar (...yet less detailed) post about treatment decisions. I received a lot of messages from patients and family members of patients who found that post helpful. This is for that audience. My hope is that this very detailed explanation of my treatment meetings may shed some light on how much information is involved in informing a treatment plan. While I share a lot of detail, I want to note that this is my experience. Every individual's situation and decisions will be unique to them.
Jeremy's Journey 