Ependymoma - Childhood


A message from Max: I have been fighting brain cancer since I was three years old. I am 18 years old and on the day of my 10th-year cancer-free anniversary, I was diagnosed with my 4th tumor. All my treatments have taken place at Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan and I want to give back to the community that has given me so much. Please help me and all the other patients, young and old, who are battling brain cancer. 100% of all your donations go directly to brain cancer research. Join me for a great cause. Make a gift online: http://www.giving.umich.edu/gi....ve/neurosurgery-maxy


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I have 8 tumors. Let's turn that into helping children with illnesses: Donate here https://tiltify.com/@chadwildclay/chads-wild-climb
Today, I'm getting back surgery to remove a large tumor near my tailbone. It'll be a difficult procedure as the tumor is inside the spinal column and is surrounded by many nerves. Surgeons will have to make it through multiple bones to get in there and remove as much of it as possible. We then have to wait for biopsy results to figure out how to handle all the remaining tumors (I have a total of eight in my spine). It is looking most like I'll be needing radiation therapy as well as chemotherapy.
They believe what I have is something called Myxopapillary Ependymoma (MEPN). From what I'm researching online, it seems about one in a million people get this. It seems to be growing from the central nervous system out of the spinal cord rather than the brain, in my case.
Over the last 18 months or longer, I've been experiencing an incredible amount of pain in my tailbone, hamstrings, calve muscles, lower back, and gluteus muscles. It is particularly painful when trying to do physical activity such as jumping, running, jogging, and even walking. It feels like a knife is being stabbed up into my tailbone area. So, it's been pretty painful filming my YouTube videos for a while now. This is why I haven't been doing as many martial arts and other fun and crazy physical challenges lately. Hopefully, after this surgery I'll be able to get back to normal life and doing all the fun things I used to do.
Thanks to all of you who have been super supportive and positive throughout this. I really appreciate it. Also, thank you to everybody at Keck Medicine at USC in Los Angeles, CA. Every single person I spent time with, surgeons, nurses, physical therapists, doctors, MRI technicians, etc... everybody was super positive and just had a really good attitude despite having a very difficult job.
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