Tim's Potato Brain

Thank you for finding your way to this story. This section is all about how it began… and also the origin story of “the Potato”

In late 2023/early 2024, Tim started displaying some perplexing cognitive symptoms. This led to a neuro-psych evaluation in May 2024 and an MRI in early June. The MRI revealed a large mass on Tim’s left parietal and temporal lobes.

What followed was a whirlwind. 9 days later, Tim had an awake (!!) craniotomy (yes, it’s absolutely as sci-fi and terrifying as it sounds). The surgery was a success, although the tumor was diffuse enough and large enough that total resection was not possible. When the surgeon came out to update Julia, he said that the tumor was the size of a baked potato – thus forever cementing this scary thing as THE POTATO.

THE POTATO it turned out was a Grade 2 Astrocytoma – a benign, slow-growing tumor that had a really positive prognosis. Still, because of its size and the fact that full resection was not possible, Tim’s medical team chose to treat it aggressively. Once Tim was recovered from surgery, he completed 6 weeks of Photon Radiation and 6 months of oral chemotherapy.

At the conclusion of this treatment, almost a year after diagnosis, doctors were extremely satisfied with Tim’s recovery and the stability of his scans. When scans remained steadily in the “no change” zone for several months after chemo, we decided to bookend this terrible chapter with a “Potato Party” in late Summer 2025.