Amanda is a 43-year-old ultra endurance athlete who began experiencing strange symptoms in 2024: pressure headaches, déjà vu, vision problems, and eventually bizarre behaviors like eating off an upside-down plate and walking out of her shoe without noticing. After an urgent care doctor dismissed her symptoms as TMJ (lockjaw?!), her leg buckled in her own bedroom, sending her to the emergency room where an MRI revealed the truth: glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer.

Amanda's journey from diagnosis through an eight-hour awake craniotomy to her current life 16 months post-diagnosis is marked by perseverance and not anger or fear…but love.

Drawing on her experience as an ultra endurance athlete—particularly a brutal 36-hour race in Stratton, Vermont, where she trained in relentless rain and mud—Amanda applies the same mindset that got her through the worst physical challenges of her life to this new reality. Today, she jokes in her hardest hours that “

In this episode, Amanda and Cody discuss the immediate acceptance she felt upon diagnosis, the "scanxiety" she experiences every 10 weeks, the heartbreak of losing friends with glioblastoma , and why she chose not to see her cancer as an enemy.

Amanda has made it past the 16-month median survival time for glioblastoma and is currently training for the same endurance event she was preparing for when diagnosed, hoping to raise $5,000 for brain cancer research through Stash Strong. (You can help support Amanda at that link!)

Amanda's athletic background provides a unique lens for understanding resilience, and her honest discussion of both the joyful and devastating aspects of her journey offers a masterclass in living fully while facing an uncertain future.