What are gliomas? What is a GBM? I try to break down the basics of a disease process that seems anything but.

When I first shared the news with close family and friends, I should not have been surprised by the messages asking how they could help. I’ve been there before, when my father passed away from COVID six years ago. It is raw humanity, the desire to help. It is unalloyed goodness, something so pure and primal. Though selfishness seems to be in the forefront more often than not, especially when we look at the news, there are these moments that remind me at least that there are t

My husband and I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack ad nauseam during the peak of the pandemic. I cannot listen to it these days, not because I do not love the songs (I do). While we were indulging Hamilton, I had two out of three miscarriages. The songs, with their catchy rhythms and flawless harmonies, were inextricably linked with loss. But “The Room Where It Happens” persists as a favorite despite that association. This felt true especially looking back at the eve of my

At the time William the Bump decided it was time to make his presence known, our daughter was four. Why William became termed "The Bump" is something we'll get to later. Now, our daughter is four. Four and a half if you ask her. The half, those six additional months, of course are very important. Reaching that milestone came just days before William the Bump came to our doorstep. That half felt so fresh. But I’d venture a guess that four and a half years are not nearly enoug

William was a 5 cm mass sitting in my husband’s right frontal lobe. We met late at night under the harsh lights of the ER, separated by the desktop monitor and radiology viewing software. I was flustered from the drive over, and still shaking in the aftermath of witnessing my husband’s seizure. I looked at the screen closely as time skidded to a stop. I wanted to name him “Bill” after the antagonist in the Tarantino movies. Bill seemed too casual, too cool, too likeable. Will

Just a few short weeks ago, I split in two. It had been warm outside, not the suffocating heat of early summer, but heat tempered by the sun’s descent towards the horizon. My skin was still flecked with drops of water from our earlier swim, and they sparkled like tiny rhinestones. My daughter had already started to make her way inside the house, wrapped in her beach towel like a tiny burrito. My husband was standing at the pool’s edge, happy, freshly-shaved head glistening.