Ex-NBA star in Singapore for brain cancer treatment exudes hope – ‘let’s be positive’
Jason Collins, who is seeking an experimental treatment, has progressed from being ‘basically a vegetable’ to taking a two-hour walk
The 2.13 metre (7 feet) former centre, 47, and Green, a film producer, found themselves spending Thanksgiving in the city state last month, far from their extended family, as Collin underwent his first doses of EDV (EnGeneIC Dream Vector) in his battle against the most aggressive form of brain cancer.
Last Thursday, Collins, the first openly gay man to play in a major US professional sports league, announced that he was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) on August 30 and was pursuing an innovative treatment in a clinic in Singapore, where he got approval under compassionate reasons “within 48 hours”.
Had he done nothing about his cancer, doctors told Collins, who played 13 seasons in the NBA, that he would have been dead in six weeks to three months.
Speaking to This Week in Asia about how he felt about his diagnosis while he was enjoying retirement as a newlywed, Collins smiled and said: “It’s life.”
“Life is so complicated that the energy that it takes to have negative energy, it’s like, why? Let’s try to help, let’s be positive and bring people together,” he added with a chuckle as the EDV treatment was being administered intravenously into his bloodstream.