Ep 13 | February 25, 2026 | 19 mins

In this episode of Rewired Minds, Bri Salsman interviews Colleen, a brain tumor survivor who shares her journey from diagnosis to recovery. Colleen reflects on her life before her diagnosis, the symptoms that led to her being diagnosed with medulloblastoma at age 12, and the challenges she faced during treatment. She discusses the importance of community support, her experiences navigating adolescence post-treatment, and the long-term effects of her diagnosis on her life. Colleen emphasizes the power of positivity and resilience, encouraging others to focus on the good even in difficult times.

Colleen is a brain tumor survivor who was diagnosed with medulloblastoma at age 12.
She emphasizes the importance of community support during her treatment.
Colleen's experience highlights the challenges of navigating adolescence after a cancer diagnosis.
She learned to face uncertainty by taking one day at a time.
Colleen's positive outlook includes finding joy in small things post-treatment.
She reflects on the lasting impact of her diagnosis on her life choices.
Colleen encourages others to focus on the positives during tough times.
Her journey has taught her about her own strength and resilience.
Colleen's relationship with her health continues to evolve as she faces new challenges.
She advocates for looking at the bright side, even in difficult situations.

Resources
Check out a list of the most common medical terms relating to the brain tumor experience: rewired-minds.com/terms
Connect with brain tumor organizations here: https://www.rewired-minds.com/braintumorresources

Connect with Rewired Minds
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Be a Guest
Interested in being a guest on a future episode? Visit rewired-minds.com/guest for more information and to submit your request.

Disclaimer
The stories shared here are personal accounts from the brain tumor community for informational and awareness purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. Always consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding your specific situation. Most importantly, take care of yourself as you listen and process.

Transcript
Bri (00:00)
The stories shared here are personal accounts from the brain tumor community for informational and awareness purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. Always consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding your specific situation.

Guests sometimes use medical terminology, so I've partnered with Northwestern Medicine Malnati Brain Tumor Institute to provide definitions of common terms. The full list is in the show notes. Most importantly, take care of yourself as you listen and process.

Bri (00:33)
I'm Bri Salsman, a brain tumor survivor and life coach, and you're listening to Rewired Minds, a podcast where we share brain tumor stories that change us. Today's guest is Colleen. Hi, Colleen.

I'd love to kind of hear a little bit about who is Colleen? How would you like to introduce yourself?

Colleen (00:50)
I'm a preschool teacher. I had medulloblastoma as a 12 year old, but got through that year and now I'm 20 years out. April 1st, it'll be 20 years.

Bri (01:06)
I'd love to first kind of back up to life before your diagnosis as an 11-, a 10-, a 9-year-old. Who was young Colleen?

Colleen (01:15)
A quote unquote normal child. I ran around, spent, you know, till the streetlights came on. I run around with my next door neighbor, best friend and my sister and my next door neighbor's brother, who was my sister's best friend.

I was an Irish dancer. I started Irish dancing when I was five years old.

Bri (01:42)
Before this diagnosis, how would you describe your relationship or your awareness of your own health, especially as a child?

Colleen (01:53)
I have a basically pretty healthy kid. Never got sick and of course you know the whole cancer thing that that'll never happen to me. That only happens to other people you know.

I never broke any bones. The only time I ever really got sick was when I'd have like the flu, stomach bug, you know, going around the school or the chickenpox.

Bri (02:18)
Kind of the things that every kid deals with, it sounds like.

Colleen (02:21)
Right.

Bri (02:22)
Yeah, like you were saying earlier, pretty normal childhood.

Colleen (02:25)
Yeah.

Bri (02:26)
And then this happened. So what were the symptoms or the things that you experienced led you to ask questions?

Colleen (02:35)
My mom was a big, very big advocate. So first off, I remember I had headaches that we thought were migraines. But then one day at school, I ended up… It was so bad that I was getting sick and I got sent home early and then that happened again at a sleepover and also, with Irish dance, I would do this dance where you go up diagonally, you make a circle, and then you go straight across. And after that circle, I looked like a drunk person. I couldn't do it. And at that point, I'd been dancing for seven or eight years. And that was just completely not normal.

We're thinking, oh well, maybe it's like some sort of vitamin or mineral deficiency or something, you know?

Colleen (03:38)
And of course, boom, cancer.

Bri (03:41)
So how did you go from, okay, I'm having these migraines, I'm dizzy, I'm out of balance to now I have this diagnosis.

Colleen (03:51)
So my family doctor at the time, he's retired since, but he was an awesome guy. He would carry my sister and I's school pictures around in his wallet. And we'd been seeing him since I was a fetus, you know?

He is awesome. He came to see me when I was in the hospital, went through treatment. But we were going in and getting MRIs and he was having me do that nose to finger thing, touching where you try and follow it and I just couldn't do it. And he called me one day and he said, Colleen, I think you need to come back and do another MRI. We think we see something. And of course, me being that little sixth grade girl, I said, well, as long as you do not cut my hair. And then I get there and they shave the whole back of my head.

I had surgery April 1st because they did not, they knew they were the tumor they did not know what kind. So I went in and then the next day I had to have emergency surgery.

Bri (05:06)
I'm sure your perspective and hindsight might have shifted, but I'm curious if you can take yourself back to that time when you were 12 and all this stuff was happening around you and to you and how were you making sense of all of this?

Colleen (05:19)
I was absolutely terrified. 21 years ago, my aunt died of a tumor. And then a couple of weeks later, my grandma died. And then a couple months later I was diagnosed, so I didn't know anybody who had had cancer that had survived.

Bri (05:41)
Wow.

Colleen (05:41)
I mean my dad had cancer but his was benign.

Bri (05:45)
That’s a lot at 12 years old and in a very short period of time as well. How did you face this uncertainty?

Colleen (05:52)
Just kind of soldiered on. It's kind of something I have to do and one day at a time. My mom was with me almost every step of the way. If she wasn't, my grandma was there.

Bri (06:05)
And did you talk with your friends about what was going on at this time?

Colleen (06:09)
Oh yeah, yes I've always been very open. I do know almost everybody in my class came to visit me in the hospital. The girls, and then one boy. Haha.

Bri (06:22)
Hahaha

Colleen (06:24)
But yeah, the Girl Scouts came to see me and individually they came to visit me. They knew I had a brain tumor and I just kind of, you know, let them ask questions.

Bri (06:39)
That community piece I'm hearing is kind of coming back up again. You know, when you're a child, you're running around with your neighbors and your sister's friends. And now I don't know if this is the same group of people, but people are showing up again for you when you're in the hospital and showing support, which is awesome.

So you have surgery and you're discharged from the hospital and you're coming home for recovery. What was that initial recovery phase like?

Colleen (07:05)
I think it was like a month, but it felt more like a couple of weeks because then I had to start radiation and chemotherapy.

I remember on the drive home from the hospital, so I have been in the hospital for a week, which feels like forever for a kid. And I was talking, but not like, not like this. And I remember just pointing and going, mom, grass, tree, house, dog, doggy and just pointing everything out and she's like shut up.

Bri (07:38)
Hahaha. You were excited to be out of those hospital walls and see the world again.

Colleen (07:49)
Now at one point in the hospital I just kept going, Brenna, Brenna, Brenna, my sister Brenna. Because she wasn't able to come for a while because she wasn't allowed in ICU, which wouldn't have mattered because I don't remember anything from that. And at the time I would have just screamed at her because I can't couldn't talk and I was all frustrated about that. And then she kept getting thrown to different houses and her one friend came home from school sick and then of course Brenna got sick and so I didn't get to see her until the last day before I moved out of the hospital.

Bri (08:32)
And so then you do radiation and chemotherapy. Did you do those simultaneously, one after the other? How did that go?

Colleen (08:39)
So I started radiation and I think I had a couple weeks of that of just radiation and then I started chemo. So I finished radiation before I finished chemo but there was a time where I was doing both.

Bri (08:55)
So your surgery was in April. What’s like the timeframe that we're talking about before you were finished with all of your treatments?

Colleen (09:03)
Towards the end, the chemotherapy was doing more harm than good and the doctor said that my tumor had shrunk to the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil and that it was small enough to end chemotherapy.

And that was… Oh gosh. I think by then I was in seventh grade, but it was still the beginning of the year.

Bri (09:36)
It sounds nonstop for that period of time too, constant appointments and treatment and, one thing to the next, that's a lot. What would you want other 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds who might hear this, what would you want to tell them?

Colleen (09:56)
Come up with new treatment since I was diagnosed and obviously I'm alive and other people who were diagnosed. You can get through it. You just have to think positive.

Bri (10:10)
How do you think about all of this today, being almost 20 years out and having the perspective that you have now?

Colleen (10:16)
Everybody always thinks of cancer very terribly. And I mean, yes, it is – cancer in itself, but I mean, I don't… my positives, I have thick nails. I don't have armpit hair or leg hair.

Bri (10:32)
Hahaha

Colleen (10:33)
You get to know your real friends who really actually cares. I wouldn’t have met my boyfriend. He went to the same school I did and my name was on the announcements a lot asking for prayers and, you know, I was the cute kid with the hair that was a couple centimeters long and he'd follow me around and drive me nuts.

Bri (11:01)
Hahaha.

Colleen (11:03)
And then of course 15 years later ran into each other again and now we're almost, it'll be three years in May?

Bri (11:13)
Nice, what's been the lasting impact of your diagnosis?

Colleen (11:18)
So it's not reoccurring, no reoccurrence. It's a lot of fun left over, like when I get tired I look like I'm drunk, still I wobble like that when I get tired. I can't run. I can jump maybe a couple centimeters off of the ground. My balance is off, so I can't dance, Irish dance.

Bri (11:48)
Mmm

Colleen (11:49)
I can't have my own children. It messed up my pituitary.

Bri (11:53)
That's a pretty big adjustment to come to terms with not being able to have your own children, I would imagine.

Colleen (12:00)
Mm-hmm.

Bri (12:01)
Especially if that was something that you envisioned for yourself in the future.

Colleen (12:03)
Yeah.

Bri (12:04)
Were they having this conversation with you at 12? Did you understand what that meant or was this something that you learned later?

Colleen (12:08)
That's something I learned later. But then I was mad at my mom. She didn't have my eggs frozen or anything. She was like, Colleen, you were a kid. We weren't worried about that. We were worried about you living. We didn't even think about that.

Bri (12:27)
How do you think about family today with this context?

Colleen (12:31)
The way I have consoled myself to this is that as a young child, you know, you find out what the man and the woman does and you go, ew, I do what? And then you find out how to get the child out of you. I have to, what?

Bri (12:54)
Hahaha.

Colleen (12:55)
And as a child, I'd always wanted to adopt. And I feel like this is God's sign to me that you are going to adopt. That's the right way for you to have kids. Because that's the only way I could have a kid. I don't know. We gotta come up with little things like that to calm ourselves down.

Bri (13:20)
What has this journey taught you about yourself?

Colleen (13:22)
That I'm stronger than I think. It definitely showed that I can stand up for myself. I can do things I didn't think I was able to. I beat cancer, damn it.

Bri (13:36)
I know that's right. Oh, I love that. What do you see in your future, Colleen?

Colleen (13:41)
When I was in first grade is when I decided I wanted to be a teacher. And I know I'll never be a head teacher, but I'm okay with being an aid. I'll be teaching for quite a while, because that makes me happy.

It'll be a long while until I have enough money to retire. Right now, I have two cats. I'll have more pets in my lifetime. Be with Daniel. Maybe a kid or two.

Bri (14:10)
Sounds like a pretty good future. On the health front, are you continuing to do scans and testing and monitoring or is this fully behind you?

Colleen (14:22)
I believe that is behind me. I have, it's called Familial Adenoma Pulposus. It’s a colon disease. It's kind of similar to Crohn's, sort of. You get polyps randomly anywhere in the digestive tract. So I have to have a super fun colonoscopy every year. And I just had my small intestine removed. So that's where I'm worrying about the cancer right now.

It had to be 15 years ago, my dad had colon cancer. He's all fine now and hopefully, knock on wood, I'm good. They catch it in time.

My dad, when he was a child, he had a brain tumor that, luckily for him, was benign and his was in the sinus. He was roughly about my age when I was diagnosed. I think he was like 14 because he was in high school, I believe. Maybe 13.

Bri (15:30)
And so when you were 12 going through all of this, what impact did it have to know that your dad also went through something similar when he was in high school?

Colleen (15:41)
Well, it made me really jealous. Because, all he had to do was surgery and that was it. Also, because they had to enlarge his sinuses to get the tumor out, he doesn't get sinus infections.

Bri (15:54)
So some similarities, but also some differences as well, of course.

Colleen (15:57)
Yeah.

Bri (15:58)
Everybody's journey's a little bit different. What do you wish that your family and friends understood better about your experience with all of this?

Colleen (16:08)
See these are things I say all the time when put on the spot my brain goes blank. And it goes out now.

Bri (16:15)
That's okay. That's all right. And if it comes back, we can come back to it. That's all good.

How has this experience rewired your mind?

Colleen (16:23)
This one's kind of funny because watching the kids at recess and they're walking on like the kids toy balance beam or those cement parking markers and because I have bad balance I forget a lot of times they possibly, probably don't. And I'll get worried and I'm like, yeah, not everybody has terrible balance, Colleen.

The pre-schoolers, they usually do have bad balance, but like I'll do that even like if I'm out in public and see a teenage kid balancing on something. I'll still have that same thought.

Bri (17:10)
Well, what's your message for the brain tumor community?

Colleen (17:12)
If you are unfortunately diagnosed with cancer, you gotta look at the positive things.

Who’s the original actor of Batman? I can't remember his name. The one who was in a car crash or whatever, that was paralyzed.

But that he thought of like seven good things a day or whatever. My mom would make me do that. I love my nurses. I'm still alive. My mom, I have a very good mom. My sister's coming to visit me today. I don't know, things like that. It might just be little things like that.

Bri (17:55)
What a beautiful way to wrap up this conversation. I feel like I am being drawn to challenge all the listeners to take part in Colleen's activity that she just described, which is to find seven things that are positive today.

I think what's really cool about that too is it encourages a presence as well of not dwelling on the past, we're not living in the future, but it's present in this moment. What can I be grateful for? I love that so much.

Bri (18:33)
Thank you for being part of the Rewired Minds community. Full show notes, resources, and a transcript for today's conversation can be found at rewired-minds.com/podcast. If you or someone you know has a brain tumor story to share, I'd love to hear from you. Visit rewired-minds.com/guest to learn more about collaborating on a future episode.

This podcast is a one woman labor of love. It's a true honor to bring it to your ears and facilitate connection among the brain tumor community. If this episode resonated with you, please rate, review, and share with someone who might need to hear it.