Middletown Woman Diagnosed With Brain Tumor 1 Month After Baby's Birth

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — On Oct. 21 there will be a 5K run on Sandy Hook to raise money for a rare type of brain tumor, oligodendroglioma.

And a Middletown woman was diagnosed with that brain tumor in 2021, just five weeks after she gave birth.

The woman is Maureen O’Donnell, 36, who lives with her husband and toddler daughter in the River Plaza section. Much of her extended family also calls Middletown home.

"November 3, 2021 was the most joyous day of my life, when my daughter was born ," she shares. "December 7 was the most terrifying."

That's when out of the blue, O'Donnell had three seizures in one night.

She said she completely "blacked out" and has little memory of that evening. She went to Riverview and was then transferred to JFK Medical Center in Edison, where doctors gave her a grave diagnosis: She had an oligodendroglioma tumor growing in her brain.

To this day, doctors are still not sure what caused it.

"I had just turned 34," she said. "I was told it's just bad luck. And it hits you in the prime of life —people in their 20s, 30s and 40s are the ones who most commonly get this type of tumor. One doctor did say that being pregnant possibly caused the tumor to grow."

"At the time it felt unreal," she recalled. "I just woke up in a hospital bed hearing this doctor saying 'brain tumor' over and over again. I was like, I'm a new mom; I'm supposed to be nesting with my baby and instead I am talking over Zoom to a neurosurgeon in San Francisco."

Doctors in New Jersey and California told her that without brain surgery she would "100 percent die."

"It's a fatal tumor," she said. "Without surgery, the tumor would grow into into my motor cortex and prevent all motor function and eventually kill me."

On Jan. 20, 2022 she had brain surgery; it was an "awake" craniotomy so doctors could destroy the tumor but also make sure she did not lose motor skills or suffer nerve damage. She then had to spend a month in the hospital recovering. Meanwhile, her newborn daughter was only two months old.

"It was extremely hard," she shares. "I still cry when I talk about it. I brought photos of my baby into surgery with me and I just stared at her photos for that whole month while I recovered. My husband would come in and reassure me and hold my hand and I would wake up and be like, 'Is someone feeding my baby?'"

It was her will to get back home and care for her baby that pushed O'Donnell through occupational and physical therapy: "I couldn't walk and I couldn't move my left arm. They had to teach me how to use my whole left side again. They brought infant clothing in and I had to practice putting them on a doll."

Once back home in Middletown, she also had chemotherapy and radiation. She must take daily anti-seizure medication for the rest of her life. It was also impossible for doctors to remove the tumor entirely; part of it remains in her motor cortex.

"It's essentially a slow death sentence: The doctors told me that no matter what, I will always have a recurrence of the tumor," she said. "It's sort of just a matter of kicking the can down the road. They told me don't worry about it; enjoy your time with your daughter and by the time you need treatment again there will be new advancements in technology, and more options. But I'm just thinking, ''Gosh, I don't want to pass away before my daughter turns 10 years old.'"

She's very active in multiple "oligo" support groups, and hears all the stories of what long-term survival looks like: Tumor recurrences, multiple surgeries, more chemo, strokes, loss of physical and mental abilities, personality changes — "basically losing pieces of themselves along the way as they try to outrun this rare cancer that eventually catches all of us oligo patients," she said.

And she did have a grand mal seizure in November 2022, her first and only since the surgery.

But she is very much looking forward to the 5K on Oct. 21 and she encourages people to either participate or simply donate. Learn more and sign up here: https://bit.ly/ftcNJ

The walk-run will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, October 21 at Sandy Hook, within Gateway National Recreation Area at Fort Hancock.

“Like Maureen, every person with an oligo has a compelling and important story,” said Brock Greene, founder of Oligo Nation. “Their life and their future are at risk. At the same time, there is a real chance that research could change everything ... if the funding is there.”

Oligodendroglioma is an incurable cancer that affects nearly 20,000 people in the United States. No new treatments have been invented in the past twenty years.

While having this condition has slowed O'Donnell down, it's also taught her:

"I still don't have full strength back and I get tired and mental fatigue a lot easier, especially at the end of the day. My left side is still very weak," said the Middletown mom. "But I'm extremely grateful for my little family unit. My husband and my daughter are the most precious things in my whole life. When I spent that month in the hospital after surgery, I would just flatten my left arm against my daughter's photo and stare at her and think: Live, live, live, for my daughter and for myself. She is my super power."

Donate to help here: https://give.oligonation.org/e...