Support Brooke's Battle with Brain Tumor

My name is Brooke. I’m a single mom of two kids, Josh who is 8 and Evelynn who is 7.

On 9/23/24, I went into the ER for a headache. Or so I thought. They did a CT scan on my head only to find out that I have hydrocephalus due to a tumor in the thalamus region that’s blocking the flow of CSF fluid through my brain and spinal cord. All the doctors said I shouldn’t be walking and talking in the state I was in.

I was rushed to Barrow Neurological Institute where I was a patient for nearly three weeks. The day I got there, the doctors performed an EVD, where they put a drain in my ventricle to start letting the fluid come out. Then, a few days later, they did a stereotactic needle biopsy in my brain to find out what the tumor is that’s causing the blockage of CSF to flow back out of the brain. Then, the third surgery was an EVT where they made a hole in my third ventricle in the brain to let CSF fluid have an escape.

This isn’t the end of my journey. I will be seeing an oncologist for the tumor and have quite a bit of therapy to do, and I still need to get stronger before I can even go back to work and before I can even drive. Just because of all of this happening doesn’t mean the bills stop and life stops; it still keeps going. Anything will help and go towards my bills. And anything will help to make sure my kids are taken care of.

what we know about the tumor in my brain so far: they think it’s slow growing but I will have to do frequent MRIs to monitor the growth of the tumor to make sure it’s not growing too much. They think possibly a glioma or glianeuronal tumor, just waiting on the final results from NIH.

I will have to follow a neuro oncology and neurosurgeon and more therapy before I can work. Still have such a long process and recovery to go.