Tara was a 12 year old in the summer before her Seventh grade year in school, 1998. She started to get sick in June that summer, having bad headaches, loosing her balance and not being able to keep any food or liquids down. Her family doctor did test for many different things, and they all came back negative. One day she had a barium swallow and was told to have a cat scan one week later. When she went to the cat scan, she was not able to have it done, because the barium was still in her since she wasn’t able to keep liquids down. When they got home, they had a message on the answering machine and said to go down to Children’s Mercy Hospital and there will be a doctor waiting. When they got down there, she wasn’t even able to stand, that is how bad her balance was. Within an hour of having an MRI, they knew she had a brain tumor, they just wouldn’t know if it was cancerous until they did surgery to remove it. They were not able to do surgery right away, they had to get her hydrated before they could perform it, so they waited 3 days. They removed the tumor and it was cancerous, it was a fast growing tumor and they said if they hadn’t found it when they did, within 2 weeks she would have died. Tara had a 4 hour surgery, 1 1/2 years of chemotherapy and 6 weeks of radiation. 15 years later, she is healthy and doing great! She has a few side affects, but otherwise great. She got married in 2010. Tara has volunteered at the Mix for Kids Radiothon for 13 years telling her story, answering phones, and doing several events for the Children’s Miracle Network. She wants to raise awareness for not just Brain Cancer, but Childhood cancer too. Her motto is… “Anything can happen to you at anytime and any age, so live life to the fullest, you never know what’s going to happen.”