Mike Harris was relieved to know that a brain tumor was behind his strange symptoms. Then came the hard part: Removing it.

Months earlier, Harris had been enjoying life as a retiree in good health. Then, odd things began to change. He and his wife, Willo, visited several doctors. None of them could figure out the cause and those symptoms kept getting worse.

Finally, a doctor ordered an MRI of his brain and Harris had his answer: a meningioma—a fist-sized tumor in his brain. Harris just celebrated the first anniversary of the removal of his tumor by Melanie Hayden, MD, at the Stanford Brain Tumor Center. “I’ve been blessed,”  Harris said.