Danielle's Brain Cancer - a Major Disruption

Hi all,

My name is Erica Cole, and my sister Danielle Kornhaas was diagnosed with brain cancer back in August. The diagnosis was shocking and discovered following a completely unrelated MRI for an endocrine procedure in May.

As the Columbia/NYP neuro doctors continued to monitor the components of her brain, they believed that the mass was a fairly harmless glioma in her left temporal lobe. As a precaution, the neurosurgeon performed a biopsy in August and surprisingly found it to be a grade four tumor, otherwise known as a Glioblastoma.

Sadly, Danielle's cancer is unfortunately incurable and requires an aggressive treatment plan. On September 18th, she underwent a 7-hour partially awake open-brain surgery at Columbia where a team of neurosurgeons worked to remove as much of the tumor as possible. Fortunately, the pathology did not appear to differ or be worse than the biopsy, but the diagnosis did not change and remains incredibly challenging.

Her next steps include six-weeks of simultaneous radiation & chemotherapy at MSK (Sloan), starting sometime in mid-October. From there, she will spend 6-12 months continuing chemotherapy, and searching for relevant clinical trials, to work through as much of the tumor as possible.

Danielle's treatment will be both time consuming and physically exhausting, so she has been forced to start disability and step away from the work that she loves. Aside from this being incredibly upsetting, this is obviously a financial disadvantage for the family. Since she and her husband, Ryan, have a full family to care for, mine and Ryan's immediate families wanted to start a GoFundMe in an effort to provide as much financial support as possible while Danielle endures a year+ of treatment. We are hopeful that Danielle's treatment will allow her to return to work in the future, but will not know for some time.

Danielle and Ryan feel very strongly that their young daughters - Leila (almost 4) and Scarlett (18 months) - need to remain in their daycare to maintain consistency and normalcy. The girls have both attended (and loved) their daycare since they were babies so a shift in childcare would be incredibly disruptive. Additionally, their hope is to continue as many other normal behaviors and activities as possible to limit the girls' exposure and understanding to what is going on with Danielle's cancer. In addition to supporting the cost of daycare, these funds will help to lift some of the financial burden of running their household.

We understand this is a lot of information, but we are sharing it to provide transparency and offer a way to help for those looking to provide support. If anyone wants to connect with or reach out to Danielle directly, she's very open to this and I am happy to share her cell or Gmail to those who ask. For those of you who aren't as personally familiar with Danielle, she's incredibly fond of chit chatting and taking a very bold and headstrong approach to this situation.

Thanks for reading through this, and please reach out directly with any questions or concerns - [email redacted].

We have so much appreciation in advance of your love & support.

-Erica (and the Cole & Kornhaas crews)

PS - we've collectively tag lined the battle BCCTWB (BrainCancerChoseTheWrongBi***)