There's a scourge that afflicts thousands of Americans each year. In 2014, my family was a victim.
About 14,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most common form of adult brain cancer, every year. It will kill all but 15 percent within five years. Barely half live 18 months. Of two dozen experimental drugs tested in clinical trials for newly diagnosed glioblastoma in the last decade, zero improved survival. The last drug to do so, by an average of about two months, was temozolomide, approved in 2005. The newest treatment, based on electrical fields, bought patients an average of five more months.
Arizona Senator John McCain's 13-month battle brought the disease to the forefront in 2018. For my family, his fight was a poignant reminder of the cancer's devastating effects.
This past week, Marilyn, my maternal grandmother, would have turned 82 years old. She would have had she not succumbed to glioblastoma.
I was very close to my grandmother. She shared my interest in our family's history, and loved recounting her childhood on the Kansas prairie. Portraits of her life are my favorite stories to tell, including the discovery of an heirloom at the farmstead where she was born, how she met my grandfather, and her efforts to earn her high school diploma before turning 40.
In a March 2014 oral history interview, she summed the shape of our bond: "You and I, I know we can communicate. We have a bond that will never be broken, and I know that as well as I live and breathe. I love all of my kids and grandkids equally, but there are souls that meet on the same level. You just know when you're really tied into someone and, Michael, we're tied."
Two months later, my grandmother was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme. After a nearly five-month fight, she passed away. She was brilliant and her loss was a gut-wrenching blow.
Her battle was difficult because there were few effective medical treatments available. It's a wicked torment to have no options, especially when you love life like she did.
Understandably, finding meaningful treatments and a cure is an important cause to me. And I'm doing something about it.
In May 2019, five years after my grandmother's diagnosis, I am participating in the Race for Hope in Washington, DC.
Each of my steps will be in her memory, but with hope to spare others from this cruel fate.
