News from the tumor board

 Dear all,

After a couple of years of relative tranquility, Maarten's latest MRI showed growth of a troublesome spot located on the brain stem. The medical team at Seattle Children's is working on a treatment plan to deal with this latest bout of recurrence. We now know that Maarten has a type of brain tumor (recurrent Ependymoma) that will come back time and again, and that will just have to be 'spot-cleaned' by the neurosurgeons and radiologists until we find a more permanent cure. Therefore, we are kick-starting again our fundraising efforts for Seattle Children's Pediatric Brain Tumor Research guild to support the amazing scientist working on CAR-T cell therapy and other innovative medicine to treat brain cancers. This year we are going BIG with a fundraising goal of $20.000. We invite everyone to join and/or sponsor Team Maarten at the Run of Hope 2021 here : https://www.runofhopeseattle.org/. The Run of Hope will be held both virtually as well as in person (pandemic-permitted) in Seward park (Seattle) - on September 26th, 2021. We want to ask if you can tap into your social networks to broaden our reach. We will have a bake-sale in the next couple of weeks here on Vashon Island and if you have other fundraising ideas please come forward. We trust our medical team and feel so lucky to have you all our lives for emotional support.

We will post some updates on this blog every now and again, like we have done in previous years.

With Love,

Maarten, Francois and Sacha