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The Hermelin Brain Tumor Center Support Group
Get the support you need through brain tumor treatment and survivorship.
Rooting for the Home Team: Nestelynn's Story
That bright, smiling face adorned an entire building wallscape at the corner of Woodward and Elizabeth, facing into the Detroit Tigers home field at Comerica Park.
Nestelynn’s medical team from the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Hospital unveiled the mural to her during a special celebration the week of Tigers Opening Day.
“This is amazing. I’m completely shocked,” Nestelynn said when she saw her mural for the first time in person.
“Just seeing when she first turned around and looked at (the mural) – that moment was so cool,” says Matt Zelley, who created the artwork for Nestelynn’s mural.
“I went to work in the morning and I came home with a brain tumor.”
Nestelynn was in the prime of her life when she began experiencing a headache that wouldn’t go away. She thought the headache was brought on by extreme stress at work but decided to go the emergency room at Henry Ford Hospital to be safe.
There, an MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor that required surgery.
“I always tell people I got up, I went to work in the morning and I came home with a brain tumor,” she says.
Nestelynn was diagnosed with a glioma, a type of brain tumor, in the frontal lobe of her brain. DNA from her tumor revealed that with surgery, her tumor was curable.
Using a real-time technique called intraoperative mapping to track the tumor during surgery, Nestelynn’s Henry Ford neurosurgery team was able to remove the tumor while protecting normal brain tissue.
“Our goal is not just that people survive but come out with something positive and can live a full life,” says Tobias Walbert, M.D., neuro-oncologist and co-director of the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Hospital.
Dr. Walbert says Nestelynn is the perfect example, and the mural truly exemplifies her spirit of persistence and survival. Nestelynn, who’s never missed a Tigers home World Series game, remarked that she wants her mural to give others hope.
11 years of survivorship and personal growth
Since the removal of her brain tumor, Nestelynn wanted to take the hope she had for a healthy future and make a difference within the community.
She began by leaving the 13-year position she held and started a new role as Neuroscience Patient Resource Coordinator at Henry Ford Health, working directly with those experiencing brain tumors at the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center. Additionally, Nestelynn decided to further her education by pursing two master’s degrees in administration and strategic communication.
To further provide hope and ensure that all patients receive the best experience at Henry Ford, Nestelynn has taken on roles with various brain tumor advocacy organizations, including the Brain Tumor Support Group and Family Advisory Council at the Henry Ford Hermelin Brain Tumor Center.
Nestelynn has been involved with the partnership between the Head for the Cure Foundation and the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center annual event in Detroit. Additionally, she joined 4 other patients from the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center and her Neuro Oncologist, Dr. James Snyder in Washington, D.C. as part of the annual Head to the Hill advocacy day to persuade elected officials to delegate more funding to brain cancer research. Nestelynn was a speaker at a Henry Ford Cancer survivorship event, and works on several Game on Cancer initiatives. She was even honored and had the opportunity to ride the Henry Ford Health float at a Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In the years since her diagnosis, Nestelynn continues to support the brain tumor and cancer community as a whole. Most of all, she remains an ardent Detroit Tigers fan, and has gained a greater appreciation for the Detroit Lions organization - especially given her involvement with the Game On Cancer fundraising program.
