I'm going to cure my girlfriend's brain tumor

OP if you're reading this, your time is better spent advocating for your partner, being there for her and loving her.

We've been using "AI" in science far longer than you realise. We happily take on new tech at breath taking speed.

Don't waste your time, please just focus on her and not the disease.

Please do what you need to do for your girlfriend. Not for yourself. Knowledge is great to navigate this mess. I am so sorry.

I'm... concerned for the health of this man. I appreciate his dedication, but I read a level of love that's pressing past caring for the human and into beating yourself up.

Did she ask you to cure this tumor? Did she ask you to post about it?

This is a common story in disability and chronic illness communities -- a partner gets so fixated on the illness they forget the human afflicted with it. The ill partner goes to the grave wishing their partner would stop fighting and start just spending their remaining time filling their lives with joy.

It leads to especially dark places when they don't succeed.

I wish him all the best, but don't lose sight of the human suffering the illness and what they want.

At some point, every man comes face to face with the lie of his potency. We're told our willingness to turn ourselves into ruthless avatars of purpose makes us powerful. Unstoppable. We can do anything if the call is great enough. Is it suspicious that the call takes the voice of more powerful men? Pay it no mind. The world is yours for the taking.

Then, one day, the tide comes in. You learn what old men know. What women know. What every victim of circumstance knows. Sometimes the world just happens to you.

I had a (micro)prolactinoma that was successfully treated with medication. Even though it was nowhere near as "bad" as this man's girlfriend's, getting it diagnosed took almost 2 years and the possibility of prolactinoma was dismissed outright by several doctors.

It should be pointed out that the pituitary gland sits at the base of the brain and prolactinomas are not technically considered "brain tumors" because they're not in the tissue of the brain. So it's a mischaracterization to keep referring to this as a "brain tumor" and a bit of an odd one for someone trying to start a medical research effort.

Unfortunately, the reality is that sometimes life just doesn't deal you a good hand. I think it's sad this man is talking about children when prolactinomas are a leading cause of infertility and it sounds like, for a variety of reasons, this man's girlfriend has one that is very difficult to treat. While it's OK to always hope, it's also possible to cling to false hope so strongly that it prevents you from accepting and moving forward with the life you have instead of the life you envisioned.

If we had a machine today with unlimited intelligence could it figure out a cure for cancer with our currently available data, or would it just request more data and ask us to conduct more studies? Is the bottleneck our ability to recognize patterns in the current data (i.e. intelligence) or the lack of sufficient data to determine a pattern? Or is it some other more nebulous thing that we aren’t considering?

That long duration stress from caring for a loved one with a potentially fatal illness is difficult to describe. I remember sharing that same driving thought of “if this goes south, will I honestly be able to say I did everything I could?”

If the author reads this: I’m sorry that you and your girlfriend are going through this.

I would strongly suggest seeing a therapist. I’ve experienced traumatising moments in life, and therapy has been a great help.

Thank you for sharing the story. I appreciate your taking the time to write out all of these things despite having to also do the work to combat the condition.

About the kids thing: Genetic causes for these are super hard to isolate but if, perchance, science sees fit to give us the information then you do have embryo selection available to make this choice safely.

Rooting for the two of you. And just wanted to thank you for the story. The sum of anecdotes often is the source for good hypotheses for science. I think you’re doing a good thing sharing what you’re doing.

My girlfriend also has this and I just found out my coworker has been dealing with it for some time. Has me wondering just how common it is

I'm confused by this post because it seems like his partner got best therapy possible with two surgeries followed by medications without going blind or having other major hormonal issues which can happen after surgery. As correctly stated in this thread prolactinomas aren't a death sentence or even (technically) a brain tumour, and the major risks have been avoided so far. What exactly is being accomplished by a VC deeply researching this case beyond satisfying the valid desire to help your life partner?

Good luck and godspeed my friend

Don’t do this. Enjoy the time that you have together. Work with your doctors.

best wishes..

some people do manage to cure their own disease sometimes.

This sounds a lot like "Lorenzo's Oil" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo%27s_Oil

Hopefully with a better end.

This is officially the most unhinged LinkedIn post in the world. This is the winner.