At the age of 30, I stopped teaching and became a stay-at-home father. I continued to be an ocean lifeguard supervisor on the weekends.

Three years later in 2003, while working as an ocean lifeguard, I had a major headache, worse than any I ever had. I went home sick for the first time in 15 years. I quickly saw my doctor and was told I was dealing with a migraine headache. I received a prescription and went home. Unfortunately, I had the same headache 24 hours later. At that point, my general practitioner suggested I describe my issues with a neurologist.

Upon meeting the neurologist the following day, he set me up for common lab work, an EEG, and an MRI. My lab work was fine, the EEG showed that the left side of my brain was no longer working correctly, and the contrast MRI found a tumor in my left temporal lobe.

A biopsy was quickly done at my local hospital. There, I was told that surgery could NOT be done. When asking how long I had to live, I was told “TWO months”.

At that time, my daughter was almost three years old and my wife (now ex) was eight months pregnant with our second child. With lucky connections, I was able to get a second and third opinion at two large research hospitals in California within a week. We went to one in Southern California in the morning, then took a flight to Northern California for an appointment in the afternoon. Having originally been told that surgery was not a possibility, I asked what clinical trials I could participate in. I wanted to do anything that could allow me to see the birth of my son.

Both hospitals reached out within 24 hours, informing me that surgery COULD be done but neither knew how much of the tumor could be taken out until they began surgery. We decided to use the SoCal research hospital because it was within an hour drive.

Post-surgery, my surgeon informed me that she believed she removed it all but stated that unseen submicroscopic tentacles would still exist. For additional treatment I was assigned 30 days of radiation and 2 years of chemotherapy (21 days on / 7 days off). I again brought up my interest in participating in a clinical trial. Back in 2003, my surgeon had created an immunotherapy clinical trial for glioblastoma patients. I happily became the third patient in that trial, and that treatment is now known as DCVax-L.

My son was born nine days after my surgery. We named him Brad Silver II in case I was not able to stick around. He graduated from college last year with cum laude honors and my daughter has become a Clinical Response Specialist.

As a long-term survivor, I have given back to the brain tumor community through mentorship and volunteer work with the ABTA, the 4th Angel Program, Imerman Angels, Patient and Family Advisory Council at UCLA, and UCSF Peer Volunteer Community.