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Jason Collins, known as the NBA’s first openly gay player and currently an ambassador for the league, is confronting a formidable health challenge. Diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, Collins was initially given a dire prognosis of just six weeks to three months to live without any intervention.
In an interview with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, published Thursday, Collins detailed his ongoing battle with the disease. This follows a statement released by his family in September, which disclosed that he was receiving treatment for a brain tumor.
Collins explained that the initial announcement was purposefully vague, a decision made to protect his privacy at a time when he was not in a position to speak for himself. “My loved ones were trying to grasp the situation we were facing,” Collins revealed in the interview. “But now, I feel it’s important for people to hear my story directly from me.”
Back in September, his family revealed in a statement to the NBA that he was undergoing treatment for a brain tumor.
Collins explained in the ESPN interview that the statement was “intentionally vague.”
“They did that to protect my privacy while I was mentally unable to speak for myself and my loved ones were trying to understand what we were dealing with. But now it’s time for people to hear directly from me,” Collins said in the online article.
Collins recounted that doctors discovered a baseball-sized mass in his brain in late August and told him he would only live six weeks to three months if they did nothing.
According to the former NBA player, if he were to pursue the standard of care for glioblastoma in the U.S. the life expectancy would still be just 13 months.
“We don’t want to just sit around and wait, which is why we’re going to have to travel internationally for the next step,” Collins explained.
ESPN’s video showed Collins traveling to Singapore for an experimental chemotherapy not approved in the U.S. He and his husband plan to stay there for at least six more weeks as he battles the deadly brain cancer.
Collins announced he was gay in 2013, becoming the first publicly gay athlete to play in any of the four main North American sports leagues. He retired in 2014 after a 13-year career that included stops with the New Jersey Nets, Memphis, Minnesota, Atlanta, Boston, Washington and back to the Nets after they moved to Brooklyn.
Collins averaged 3.6 points and 3.7 rebounds in his career. In his best season, he averaged 6.4 points and 6.1 rebounds for the then-New Jersey Nets in 2004-05.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
