Love was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2022 and given 10-15 months to live. She is now almost a year past that mark.
Former Utah Rep. Mia Love spoke with Jake Tapper, the lead Washington anchor for CNN, on Wednesday to share more about how her faith has helped her in her cancer journey.
Tapper introduced Love’s segment by saying that “Congresswoman Mia Love is used to fighting political battles. But now, she’s fighting a battle that is much more personal and frankly, much more consequential.” Love had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2022. It was last August at the YSA Area Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that she first shared her diagnosis publicly.
She described to Tapper how she was on vacation with her family in Puerto Rico and had a bad headache. At first, she dismissed it — she told herself, everyone gets headaches, right? But the headache became unbearable and she felt like two icepicks were stabbing in her brain. Her husband, Jason, rushed her to a local hospital, where she got a CAT scan. As she shared last year, the doctor reading them asked, “Was that there before?” A tumor in her brain was clearly obvious.
Love rushed home to Utah to have surgery, which removed about 95% of the tumor. The tumor was not benign. It was a Grade 4, fast-growing tumor. Glioblastoma multiforme, the same type of brain cancer that took the life of Sens. Ted Kennedy and John McCain and former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the oldest son of President Joe Biden.
She followed up with chemotherapy and radiation, but the prognosis was dire. One of approximately 14,000 Americans diagnosed with glioblastoma every year, Love said she was given 10 to 15 months to live.
“They can figure out the diagnosis,” she said, “but I did not have to take the prognosis.”
Love is leaning into hope and faith to help her through this journey. She has had nearly an extra year of life past her original prognosis, one that Tapper said she has spent “enjoying every moment with her family.”
This post is an excerpt from a longer article I wrote for the Deseret News. You can find it here.
