A trailblazing NBA player has revealed devastating personal news. The athlete confirmed that he has Stage 4 brain cancer.
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Across his 13 years in the NBA, Jason Collins has built a legacy for himself. Collins was the first active, openly gay player in the Association’s history. In an ESPN article, Collins confirmed that he has Stage 4 glioblastoma.
He said that he first realized something was wrong in August when he planned to go to the US Open with his husband, Brunson Green. They missed their flight because of him. He writes, “When the car came to take us to the airport, I was nowhere near ready. And for the first time in decades, we missed the flight because I couldn’t stay focused to pack.”
The NBA icon went on to explain, “I had been having weird symptoms like this for a week or two, but unless something is really wrong, I’m going to push through. I’m an athlete.”
NBA Star Talks Cancer
Scans at the hospital confirmed the cancer diagnosis. But at the time, he was in no state to process it. The cancer had affected his comprehension and memory
He explained, “What makes glioblastoma so dangerous is that it grows within a very finite, contained space — the skull — and it’s very aggressive and can expand. What makes it so difficult to treat in my case is that it’s surrounded by the brain and is encroaching upon the frontal lobe — which is what makes you, ‘you.'”
The NBA star revealed that his glioblastoma has wild mutations that make treating it difficult. It’s also extremely fast growing, meaning that without treatment he would have been dead in six weeks to three months. Even with treatment, doctors gave him a prognosis of only about a year.
He wrote, “Due to my tumor’s genetic makeup, the standard temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy for glioblastoma doesn’t work on it. Currently, I’m receiving treatment at a clinic in Singapore that offers targeted chemotherapy — using EDVs — a delivery mechanism that acts as a Trojan horse, seeking out proteins only found in glioblastomas to deliver its toxic payload past the blood-brain barrier and straight into my tumors.”
Even if his treatment doesn’t cure the cancer or save his life, Collins is determined to fight the disease. He is hopeful that the treatment used on him will one day be used to help others.
The NBA star writes, “I’m fortunate to be in a financial position to go wherever in the world I need to go to get treatment. So if what I’m doing doesn’t save me, I feel good thinking that it might help someone else who gets a diagnosis like this one day.”