Welcome to My Personal Page
Hello and thank you for taking the time to visit my page.
I am thankful to have my family and friends support. Your contributions participating or donating will aid in research for brain tumor treatments.
I tried to make this brief for those who are not familiar with my history. In 2008, I was diagnosed at 19 as a freshman in college with a brain tumor about the size of a golf ball. This was after having various symptoms for a few weeks including a form of a seizure that brought me in to seek an answer. On January 12th, 2008 I had a left temporal partial crainotomy to successfully remove most of the benign tumor and I currently live with a residual Juvenile Pilocytic Astrocytoma, known as JPA. This type of tumor is considered a rare childhood brain tumor and at the time of removal I was misdiagnosed with a grade 2 tumor that lead to seeing numerous specialists for about a year. Through the debates of chemo, radiation, or possibly another surgical removal we came to the conclusion there was no need to touch the residual tumor since it had not increased in size still to this date. It was a hard first year of recovery and few years of close monitoring, I am proud to say I was able to obtain my BSN through it all with the love and support from those around me.
I first participated in the SF brain tumor walk 13 years ago from the recommendation of my pediatric clinical instructor and now close friend, Christina. We had an amazing turnout and raised over $2,700. While fundraising for the first walk, I was able to observe as a student and be part of the care for children that were hospitalized with similar a prognosis, but were enduring heavier treatment regimens. I found myself to be very fortunate comparing my outcome to those patients along with other brain tumor survivors that drove me even more to be at the bedside with patients. Fast forward to present day, I'm a Registered Nurse at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford for 9 years where my love of taking care of kids all began.
Glad to come together to research towards a cure for brain tumors!
With great love,
Natalie
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