In 2007, shortly after my 38th birthday, I noticed some numbness in three fingers on my left hand. I didn’t think too much about it. My husband, two daughters and I lived in Alaska, and numb fingers are not unusual. But when the numbness spread to the left side of my face, I made a doctor’s appointment.

Our lives were thrown into chaos when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which turned out to be glioblastoma. My husband, Todd...