The Liz Army:
A blog

Patient. Patient advocate. Researcher. Student.

There are more than 500 posts here. Use this search to look for something specific. Good luck!

A note about my oldest posts: I began blogging about brain cancer in 2008, at age 29. I had no background or knowledge about healthcare when I started. Please excuse typos and other misconceptions. What you read here is me in real time, like a time capsule.

Liz Salmi 3/20/16 Liz Salmi 3/20/16

Dear everyone with an oligoastrocytoma: Your diagnosis just changed

As more and more pathologists and doctors begin treating patients based on the genome of their tumor it only makes sense for the WHO to update their classification of CNS tumors. Because science.

Liz Salmi 3/6/16 Liz Salmi 3/6/16

A thank you letter to Marc Maron

I observed how a man, nearing life's end, wanted to soak up every pleasure. He ordered a wine paring with every dish! He peer pressured me into eating an oyster! He ordered three desserts.

Liz Salmi 2/23/16 Liz Salmi 2/23/16

#BTSM community survey

Please consider participating in the #BTSM community survey. The survey will be open between now and March 6, 2016.

Liz Salmi 12/31/15 Liz Salmi 12/31/15

A cranky primer on treatment for brain cancer, including a shoddy explanation of clinical trials

I was like, “What the hell? Write it all down? Who do you think I am, a person who just writes shit about brain cancer stuff?” And then I remembered I am a person who writes shit about brain cancer stuff.

Liz Salmi 12/3/15 Liz Salmi 12/3/15

When your first thought is, "Let's participate in research!"

Little did I know that my human genome is too large to send via email, but I was able to download it from my 23andMe account, upload it to Google Drive and share the link with the study.

Liz Salmi 11/21/15 Liz Salmi 11/21/15

So now my dad has brain cancer, too

it has taken me two full weeks to complete this blog post because I am (still) conflicted about how honest I should be about a man who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. It is my longstanding policy to be honest in all things here, on my piece of the Internet, but I feel guilty outing a man for his crappy behavior when a terminal diagnosis is involved.

Liz Salmi 10/21/15 Liz Salmi 10/21/15

David, Part 2: The best thing I ever did in my life

A few hours after I learned David had started hospice I woke up in the middle of the night with an incredible urge: I had to see him. I didn't want to be a burden, and I felt like I was crazy, but I had to do it. Our last goodbye was not right at all, and I couldn't let our friendship exist on the one-dimensional plain of "we both have brain cancer." I wanted to know who he was as a person, outside of the disease.