My name is Alyssa.
I am 26, and at the age of 16,
I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
I was in high school.
I was in student government, very active,
had a lot of friends, just loving life.
One day I started just feeling really nauseous
and I was getting constant migraines
and we didn't know why.
I was walking around my high school campus,
I ran into my best friend at the time,
her face went completely white.
She was like, "Alyssa,
your eyes are completely cross-eyed right now."
I called my dad and called my mom.
My dad said, "Well, we need to go see an eye doctor.
We need to get you in to see Val Shaw."
He was a family friend.
We went to his office and I'll never forget this moment,
but he told me, "You have an advanced pressure buildup,
but I don't know why.
I would recommend you get an MRI as soon as possible."
(soft music)
I'm gonna have to lead with laughter in this,
because I don't think that there's any other option
when you're going through something so hard,
you have to figure out a way to get through it,
and make sure everybody in your life is okay.
I've had four brain surgeries total.
All the surgeries I had had were to relieve symptoms
from the tumor.
There had been no growth in the tumor itself,
but then it was.
This was a much larger issue.
- We went for her appointment.
That trip was really hard
because we had all this fun stuff planned.
And when we went to our appointment,
they told us that they were gonna have to go in
and do a biopsy.
And they weren't sure if it was cancerous now,
and there were all these new questions that were popped up.
And I could tell she was thinking about the appointment
and what was to come.
And she just got really quiet and was like,
"Do you think I'm going to die?"
You wanna say, no, you wanna say, of course not,
but you don't know.
In that moment, I was just like, "I do know, and you're not,
and it's gonna be fine.
You're strong and you've made it through this
and we'll do it again."
- That surgery was unlike anything
I've ever experienced in my life.
I came out of it and I don't remember anything.
My sister describes a moment,
the residents came in and they said, "Do you have a sister?"
And I was staring at her.
And I said, "Yes."
And they said, "Great. Where is she?"
And I was like, "You know, I don't know,
but I know she's around."
- And that broke my heart.
I was hopeful that she knew she had a sister,
but the fact that she didn't recognize me was really hard.
- At this point, there was so much going on with trauma
in my brain where they had to cut,
a lot was lost in that time.
About two months, basically black.
(hopeful music)
I am very much in good health.
My brain is completely functioning.
My last appointment, my neurosurgeon,
he looked at my scans and he said,
"This is better than I even expected.
There's no trauma. There's nothing.
Your brain is normal."
And that was also a crazy moment
because I had never seen a scan of my brain
without a tumor in it.
I am forever grateful to my community, my family, of course,
and my friends who were by my side through everything.
This journey has taught me that people wanna help
and they care about you,
and they show that by helping where they can.
I think it taught me that little things in life
that may seem really hard and really upsetting,
it could be so much worse.
I think just trying to be in the moment and be intentional
and be kind and make sure people know how important
eye exams are, and eye doctors are.
An eye exam saved my life.
I am forever grateful to eye doctors forever.