Hope 4 Trenton


On Wednesday, June 19th- one of my oldest and best friends Tim O'Brien- received devastating news.

Tim's six year old son, Trenton, was brought into the Yale ER after suddenly falling very ill. After a small MRI, it was found that Trenton had a very rare and inoperable tumor on his brain stem. The name for this type of tumor is a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, otherwise known as a DIPG.

Unfortunately because of the rarity of this occurrence, there isn't much information on what causes it or how to treat it and there are very few doctors in the world who specialize in this particular illness.

After discovering what was causing Trenton the problems he was dealing with, things began moving very quickly. It is known that this type of tumor is very aggressive and progresses very quickly. The decision was quickly made to bring Trenton in to biopsy the tumor to find out exactly what they were dealing with. He recovered well from the biopsy procedure and was able to return home with Tim and his wife, Marissa, on Sunday morning.

On Monday, Trenton was brought to his outpatient procedure area and fitted for a pinpoint radiation mask and luckily did very well with it.

The course of treatment is currently 7 days a week of radiation treatment, for 5 weeks. After the radiation is completed, doctors are looking to possibly get Trenton into a clinical trial in hopes of a better outcome.

As you can imagine, this has been a very trying time for Tim and his family. But they are working hard to do everything they can for his son.The most important thing right now is for Tim to be able to be by his sons' side and help him through his treatments. We are asking for donations to help his family and to support them in this unimaginably difficult time.  

Please note, this is the official Go Fund Me for Trenton. Any and all funds raised will be given directly to Trenton, Tim and Marissa to help defray the cost of care including but not limited to hospital bills, unpaid time off and other unexpected expenses related to Trenton’s care. We kindly ask any other fundraisers via Go Fund Me, Facebook, etc. be avoided, as the use of funds donated can not be guaranteed to go to Trenton’s care.

We are here to support each other in times of need. We appreciate any and all support that can be offered.