I created this blog after I was diagnosed with a type of brain cancer called an anaplastic oligodendroglioma. Because oligodendrogliomas are so rare, there is a paucity of research dedicated to improving current treatments.

Over the past few months I have been thinking about HOW to turn the needle on this– I am determined to do everything I can to improve the outcome for oligodendroglioma patients, including myself. I am not ready to accept the statistics, not ready to say, “I have an incurable cancer” and be on my way.

So I will fight. I will update this page with actions I take to raise money for research, network– whatever steps I take to push forward, I’ll update here. Please contact me if you have interest in helping, connections, money, experience with this, or general well wishes. I am not going to give up, and can use all the help I can get!

1. Oligo Nation

I am teaming up with a non-profit organization called Oligo Nation, which is dedicated to funding medical research that will result in new and better treatments for oligodendrogliomas! Click here to find out more about this awesome organization and what they are currently doing.

Please donate to Oligo Nation to help me in find a cure by supporting this research.

2. CONSANO Honor Fund

I wrote here about joining the Consano team– this is a unique non-profit that allows medical research to be supported by crowd-funding. It’s unlike anything I’ve heard of or seen before– you can read more about it by visiting http://www.consano.org.

With the help of Consano, I started my own Honor Fund with the goal of raising $500,000 which will go directly to helping Oligo Nation create a much- needed bio-bank, which will allow new treatments to be tested against oligodendroglioma.

Please visit my honor page here. When you visit, please share with your friends, family, on your social media, etc– the consano model works best when more people see it. small donations add up to large amounts– which is what I am hoping for.

3. Use the Amazon Smile feature to donate to Oligo Nation

I know lots of you, like me, rely on Amazon for regular purchases of…everything. I even have our household’s toilet paper delivered through Amazon. Nothing makes my life easier and more efficient than getting what we need delivered… and lets be honest here– I’m not looking to waste time in a checkout line.

Amazon Smile is an easy way to continue contributing to oligodendroglioma research when you are buying things you need anyway on Amazon. Here’s how:

1. Sign in to smile.amazon.com on your desktop or mobile phone browser.
2. From your desktop, go to Your Account from the navigation at the top of any page, and then select the option to Change your Charity. If accessing from your mobile browser, select Change your Charity from the options at the bottom of the page.
3. Select Oligo Nation!

After doing this, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible purchases to Oligodendroglioma research through Oligo Nation– small amounts add up!

4. I was on TV

I am truly humbled to have been given the opportunity to share my story on KOIN- one of the local TV networks in Portland, OR. You can see the story here, and read about my experience doing it here.

5. I won an award and gave a speech

You can read about this (so far) here and here. I’ll write more about this in the coming weeks– but the award came with $25,000 to Oligo Research!! AMAZING!!! And I was able to increase awareness for this unique research need by talking about it to a room full of hundreds of people! With this award money, as of 2/14/2020 I have raised just over $61,000!!! YES!

6. Raising Money With the National Brain Tumor Society

The National Brain Tumor Society, NBTS, is an organization that works to defeat all brain cancers through increasing research, but has a dedicated oligodendroglioma fund and community that I have joined. You can read about the progress they are making here. I have started to work to raise money for this dedicated fund, 100% of which will go to Oligo Research. One main way NBTS raises money each year is through community fund raising efforts, such as Brain Tumor Walk/Runs that occur around the country. This year, due to COVID-19, all of these are so far planned as virtual events. So– while this makes it harder to have that in-person community and support, distance is no longer a factor! I’ve joined Team Oligo for the October Boston Brain Tumor Walk- and so far we have raised almost 15K for this cause! You can click here to donate in my honor 🙂

UPDATE 10/21/20: Team Oligo raised over 50K!! We raised the most of any other team at the Boston Brain Tumor walk, and all this money will be going to fund oligo research! Thank you to everyone who has contributed!!

Thank you!