Support Caitie and her family's fight against brain cancer.

After meeting with my medical team and doctors, I will be out of work for even longer than I expected to be. They don't want me going back to work until next school year. This was a decision I was not expecting as I was looking forward to getting back to doing what I love, teaching this fall/winter. Going from a two income house to one, has not been easy. I am still knee deep in a paperwork nightmare (no one prepares you for this). I am so grateful for the continued prays and support. Every donation, no matter the size, will help ease the burden on our family, allowing us to focus on my care without the added stress of financial worries. If you could also share this to get my story to as many people as possible I'd greatly appreciate it.

So how do I get here:

My brain cancer story started shortly after I gave birth to my daughter, Brooklyn —although, I didn’t know it at the time. 2 months after giving birth, I woke up one day and started limping. I wasn't quite sure what it was from, maybe giving birth or the epidural I had. I finally made an appointment in September 2023 to see my doctor. From there, the doctor was quite concerned and had a rush magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. The MRI showed an about half dollar sized tumor on my brain that was sitting on my motor cortex. Thankfully, I’ve never had any of the typical brain tumor symptoms like headaches, seizures, cognitive impairments, blurred vision or speech problems until the limping started.

This is when my life and my family's life changed forever and we knew nothing would ever be the same. No one, especially a 29 year old, brand new mother, expects to be admitted to the hospital for a brain tumor they find due to limping. A biopsy was done a few weeks later and I learned I had a type of cancerous brain tumor called anaplastic oligodendroglioma. It was recommended that I meet with a neurosurgeon to discuss surgical options.

On October 19, 2023, at age 29, I had my first brain surgery to remove as much tumor as they safely could from my left frontal lobe. When I awoke from surgery the next scary life altering thing happened, I couldn't move my right side of my body. The surgeon had told me this could happen but it actually happening is something I could have never prepared myself for. Following a short stay at Walter Reed I was transferred to an inpatient rehabilitation hospital to work on getting some of my function back in my right arm and right leg. I spent about 3 weeks working really hard to get back home to my baby girl.

Next part of my journey would be radiation and then chemo. I started proton radiation therapy at Georgetown University in January and completed 33 treatments. I then had a one month break before starting oral chemotherapy of two drugs, CCNU and Procarbazine, for five months. During this time, I visited my oncologist after every cycle for check-ups, MRIs and blood work.

In July 2024, my oncologist recommended that I stop the chemotherapy due to the toll it was taking on my body and a couple trips to the ER. All in all I was able to complete 3 chemo cycles, each cycle lasting 42 days.

So where am I at now in my cancer story:

Due to the type of cancer I have I will not be cancer free and will need to be monitored for the rest of my life. Currently, I am grateful to be receiving intense Physical and Occupational Therapy along with a few other therapies at Walter Reed Hospital. I go 4 days a week for several hours working hard to improve and regain both physical and cognitive functions and abilities that have lost.

Now this is my cancer story or maybe battle is a better way to describe it. Because I chose to wake up EVERYDAY and FIGHT. Cancer is something I have but it does not define who I am.