With Jenn Ortiz, the laughs never end.
"I have brain damage, Javier. You don't know what's going to happen," Ortiz laughed.
Even when she was faced with what many fear, the wife and mother of two had a witty return.
"I have two questions. One, will this impact my personality? She's like no. Then I said, well will I still be funny? And she's like, being funny, you might not walk again. I was like, I can do that from a chair. I can be funny," said Ortiz
Those were the first questions the Gilbert mom asked when diagnosed with Glioblastoma in 2020. But it's the first words that she said, that have become her mission.
"So, the very first thing I said when I got this diagnosis was 'It's not taking me.' They said 12 to 15 months, and I said, 'Not me' and they got one tear. That was it," Ortiz said.
Doctors determined Ortiz had the deadliest form of brain cancer and they offered her an unconventional treatment to fight it.
"I didn't ask questions. I didn't bat an eye. I said, 'I will do whatever you tell me to do,'" said Ortiz.
Dr. Nader Sanai, the director of Neurosurgical Oncology at the Ivy Brain Tumor Center at Barrow Neurological Institute told ABC15 he offered her what's called a "Phase Zero" Clinical Trial.
"At the end of the day, we say, 'Okay, Jenn, we think we have a drug for you. However, we're going to need to prove it to ourselves and to you. So since you're going through this operation, we're going to give you a few days of this drug before the operation, not enough, where it's going to cause you major side effects, not enough where it's going to be killing your tumor in those few days, but enough so that when we take your tumor out, we can test and see is this drug working for you.' And that's how we found out that this particular drug was a fit for her particular Glioblastoma," said Dr. Sanai.
The experimental drugs are not FDA approved, but if used successfully they can help advance the trial in a quicker fashion.
"Our entire goal is really to find agents and combinations that are going to cross that line with the FDA. So, when we have positive results, we're looking to see how can we extrapolate this to other patients. How do we know how to choose the right people for this particular strategy? And then we have to expand that clinical trial to prove it to the FDA," added Dr. Sanai.
The treatments worked, but like most cases of Glioblastoma, another tumor was found. Jenn then jumped back into another 'Phase Zero' therapy.
"I wanted to make sure I put 110% into saving my life," said Ortiz.
Ortiz is still in the biggest battle of her life, and she credits Dr. Sanai with giving her hope because she knows this fight is not only for her, but for the many others diagnosed with Glioblastoma in the future.
"This isn't going to stop me. The only thing that would stop me is your heart and I believe with every fiber of my being, I'm gonna beat this disease," said Ortiz.
If you'd like to help the Ortiz family with Jenn's medical bills you can donate to their GoFundMe.
