ROYAL OAK, Mich. – Here is how one woman is using coffee shops and her battle with brain cancer to raise awareness about an important cause.
Molly Marco life changed in an instant inside a Detroit coffee shop.
She passed out and was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered a brain tumor.
Flash forward to five years later after too many procedures to count and she is thriving.
Now she’s working to help others in the same fight.
Marco says that day in that coffee shop was terrifying, but she’s so thankful she had a seizure in a public place like a coffee shop, because that’s how she got her diagnosis.
“I mean if it hadn’t happened in public, I absolutely would not have taken myself to the doctor because I had symptoms like 10 years before,” she said.
In 2016 when Marco passed out in a downtown coffee shop she was taken to the hospital.
“I remember this very somber Emergency Room doctor coming over to me and saying, we need to get you an MRI, because it looks very serious, we see a brain tumor,” she said.
Marco says her brain tumor was the size of an avocado pit.
“Mine is called an anaplastic astrocytoma which is a grade three, and it has tendrils,” she said.
Since getting the majority of her tumor removed she is considered a stable brain tumor patient. She hasn’t had a seizure since 2016, but since her diagnosis she’s dedicated her life to raising awareness about brain tumors.
“I think more people are out there with brain tumors to be perfectly honest and I feel like awareness is super important,” she said.
Dr. James Snyder of Henry Ford Health System also talked about the brain tumors.
“Brain tumors are quite cryptic, there’s not always one recipe or one heralding symptom that says hey you have a brain tumor,” said Snyder.
For the month of May, which is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, Marco teamed up with four local coffee shops to raise money for game on cancer to benefit the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Health System, where she was treated.
“I wanted to pay back Henry Ford, I feel like I have the best care. I know this is not like a paid thing. I just I love them and I feel like I have the most amazing team, it’s like a second family to me,” said Marco.
In Downtown Royal Oak at the Dessert Oasis you can pick up a bag of coffee. Five dollars of it will go toward the cause. Sabbath Coffee in Clawson, Rootless Coffee in Flint and Ashe Supply Co. in Flint is also participating.
READ MORE: Local and national health headlines