Welcome to the New Chapter: Same Mission, Sharp Edges, and a Brand New Roommate

Hello. My name is Liz Holzemer. I am an award-winning author, awareness advocate, adventurer, and the human being behind the keyboard of this freshly rebranded writing website.

If you are new here, lace up your hiking boots, grab a whole milk latte, pull up a camp chair, and let us get comfortable. If you have been following my journey for a while, welcome back. Mind your step, because we are reorganizing the trail markers, and by trail markers, I mostly mean my thoughts.

Relaunching this site means it is time for the mandatory, deeply introspective introductory blog post. My marketing team asked for something conversational. They wanted to know who I am, what I write, and why I do what I do. But if I am being entirely honest, I did not want this space to turn into a dry textbook or a corporate landing page.

Yes, my life took a massive detour over two decades ago, and yes, I founded Meningioma Mommas because meningiomas needed a louder voice. But this website is not just a brochure for a cause. It is my basecamp. It is where I share my writing, my daily routine of hitting the trail to clear a twice-probed head, my stubborn insistence on whole milk lattes, a heavy dose of humor to keep the darkness at bay, and a whole lot of unfiltered truth.

Speaking of writing: I am currently out in the wild actively seeking a publisher for my forthcoming book, Screwball. Let us be entirely clear. I am looking for an advance that will, at the bare minimum, cover my daily lattes and a brand new pair of hiking boots every 300 to 500 trekked miles. Frankly, that is practically pocket change in publishing terms anyway. Though if a bidding war breaks out and someone wants to hand over a lot more, I will graciously accept.

So, let us clear the trail and start at the beginning.

I kicked my baseball-sized, uninvited upstairs roommate, otherwise known as a menacing meningioma, to the curb 26 years ago. At the time, doctors told me I was on the brink of slipping into a permanent coma and experiencing eternal sleep. Instead, I got a second chance.

That second chance forced me to pivot hard. My career as a journalist started way back in the OC before it became known as THE OC, telling other people's stories. But in 2000, life handed me a plot twist I did not pitch. I used my voice and my writing background to create a funny-sounding nonprofit to recognize and elevate what simply is not recognized enough: Meningioma brain tumors.

They happen to be the most common primary brain tumor, yet they are too often treated like the awkward cousin at a family reunion, swept under the rug and profoundly underfunded.

For 23 years, I have been writing letters, making calls, speaking to neurosurgeons and healthcare professionals, meeting with patients, and jumping up and down on my soapbox as much as my half-century-plus popping knees will allow, 365 days a year. We have strategically funneled over $542,500 into research at elite institutions like Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and UCSF.

Yet, I have yet to see, let alone cross, the meningioma cure finish line. And that breaks my heart and hurts my numb skull, because the stakes are brutally high.

We have too many kids facing these diagnoses, too many relationships fractured, too many jobs lost, too many bank accounts drained, too many dreams dashed, too many plans canned, and too many lives taken in their prime. All because of a casual, dangerous, administrative label: "benign."

Let me tell you something: Benign is NOT fine, and benign is certainly not harmless.

If you have ever tried to navigate the medical system as a woman, you already know the extra layer of exhaustion I am talking about. Long before my tumor was found, I spent a frustrating year trying to find out why my body was failing, dealing with migraines, seizures, and a medical establishment that patted me on the head and suggested I was merely female, hormonal, and moody. It took demanding my own imaging, advocating for myself when everyone else was med-splaining, to find the ticking time bomb in my head.

Women are conditioned to doubt their own guts, to apologize for taking up space in a doctor's office, and to accept being written off. My mission, on this website, in my book Curveball, in the upcoming Screwball, and on stages from the TODAY Show to major medical centers, is to shatter that script. We are our own best advocates. We have to be.

Speaking of advocating for yourself, life loves a rugged ascent, and mine apparently has a dark comedy writer at the helm.

Recently, it was confirmed that what my medical team and I had long tracked as either residual or scar tissue is, in fact, residual tumor. And to make matters delightfully complicated, my previously evicted roommate apparently brought a friend.

I now have a brand new roommate taking up real estate in my twice-probed brain.

Do I panic? Sometimes. Do I crack jokes about it? Absolutely. Humor is the walking stick that keeps the heavy stuff from crushing you on a steep incline.

But thinking about all of this, the new scan, the ongoing climb, the millions of women out there being talked down to by professionals, fires me up more than ever.

My simplest wish for this rebrand, and for the writing you will find here, is that we stop sugarcoating our realities. Whether you are here because you survived a heavy blow, because you are tired of being med-splained, because you love an adventure story, or because you just want a safe corner of the internet where people tell the truth with a bit of grit, a good laugh, and a warm cup of coffee, welcome to basecamp.

That is all.

Thank you.