Jess
In 2013, ten-year-old Jess started experiencing nausea and headaches that were so agonizing they would rouse her from her sleep almost every night.
When Jess’s paediatrician discovered pressure building on her optic nerve, he told the family to go immediately to SickKids. There, a CT scan revealed a brain stem astrocytoma.
“I didn’t really understand what a brain tumour meant,” recalls Jess. “But I quickly learned.”
Jess and her parents were told that the tumour was inoperable and the best treatment option was 70 rounds of chemotherapy.
After her ninth session, Jess suffered a stroke. While recovering in hospital, her doctors discovered that the chemotherapy hadn’t worked as they had hoped.
“We were horrified to learn that,” shares Jess. “Because we’d also been told that the tumour was inoperable.”
The tumour had in fact grown in such a way that her surgeons could remove it more easily. The procedure would be risky though—an operation Jess was told she might not survive. But ten hours later, she awoke smiling to the news that the majority of the mass was gone.
Today, what remains of the tumour is still considered inoperable, but Jess hasn’t needed further treatment. Several health challenges, including epilepsy and POTS, are the enduring scars of her brave battle. But they haven’t stopped her from staying active. Jess enjoys long distance running, dance and playing with her beloved golden doodle, Bronson.
Jess admits that at times her journey with cancer felt isolating, but she found moments of joy and richness through Meagan’s HUG. It’s where she met her best friend and fellow Meagan’s HUG Hero Jadyn Schill. Today, it’s her platform to advocate for paediatric brain tumour research.
“I feel certain that so many of the advances in treatment for paediatric brain tumours have come from funding from Meagan’s HUG,” smiles Jess.
Jess’s interest in research has become a career ambition. A focused student, she is applying to universities to study biochemistry and neuroscience and looks forward to a career of life-long discovery.
