Pushing Through Brain Cancer Battle with Daily Squat Challenge
- Antiques Roadshow star Theo Burrell, 38, who is living with brain cancer, set a daily goal of 88 squats a day to raise money for brain tumor research. While pushing forward with the challenge, she’s also still being treated for glioblastoma.
- Glioblastoma (GBM) is an aggressive form of brain cancer. It grows and spreads very quickly. Patients typically have an average survival rate of 15 months with treatment and less than six months if left untreated.
- Burrell’s latest scans to monitor the progress of her brain tumor showed promise: “no active cancer cells.”
- Medical experts emphasize the positive impact of goal-oriented exercise on a patient’s mindset and overall health outcomes. Dr. William Kevin Kelly, Chair of Medical Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University, often incorporates movement and goal-setting into his patients’ routines to help them reclaim a sense of control.
- Burrell’s young son remains at the center of her fight against brain cancer. Cancer patients with children can have increased motivation to endure difficult treatment, but experts suggest having an effective communication plan about the situation will help ease the emotional impact of the illness on them.
“I think I’ll keep it up after the challenge has ended because it’s supposed to be one of the best exercises you can do, particularly for the back,” Burrell told The Irish News.
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This approach reflects a broader practice within the cancer community: determination and discipline often go hand in hand with successful treatment outcomes.
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“We call it ‘eye of the tiger,’” said Dr. Sid Ganguly, Deputy Director of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapeutics at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
“You have to have the eye of the tiger to go through this grueling process that is necessary these days to get rid of these virulent and aggressive cancers,” Dr. Ganguly said.
WATCH: Dr. Sid Ganguly explains how the “eye of the tiger” mindset helps both patients and survivors.
According to Dr. Ganguly, the mindset extends beyond attitude, encompassing movement, nutrition, and self-belief. “A good positive mind increases our interleukins, our immune system,” he added.
Burrell’s story is a living example of that philosophy. As she squats her way through the month-long challenge, her message of grit and gratitude resonates widely. Her original goal of £500 ($673) has skyrocketed past £7,500 ($10,103) — and counting. The fundraiser coincides with Glioblastoma Awareness Week, spanning July 14th to July 20th, 2025.
Doing dozens of squats every day can be challenging for a fit person without cancer, and the difficulty grows, especially while undergoing treatment for glioblastoma. In a recent Instagram update, Burrell revealed encouraging scan results for the progress of her brain tumor.
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“No active cancer cells,” she said in an Instagram post.
“My bloods are definitely starting to suffer, but not enough to prevent continuing treatment for now,” Burrell said.
Burrell started her seventh round of chemotherapy in mid-June.
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“But as we know with glioblastoma, they always wake up at some point and the tumor will start to grow again – but it’s as good a situation as I could have hoped for given the nature of the disease,” she explained.
Burrell also speaks openly about her driving force: her young son, Jonah.
“This disease is stealing young people away from their families. I’ve seen lots of people lose their lives to glioblastoma who are parents of young children; it’s just so devastating for everyone involved.”
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“The idea that you will never see your children grow up. There are lots of things I’ve come to terms with on this journey, but I will never ever be okay with the fact that I’m going to miss out on a lot of Jonah’s life,” she said.
Through the whirlwind of treatments, emotions, and extraordinary fundraising efforts, Burrell remains a portrait of perseverance. Support from friends, followers, and fellow survivors continues to pour in, like this heartfelt message:
“Hope you’re keeping well overall after the chemo,” wrote Instagram user “RememberingRayhan,” whose account honors a young loved one lost to a brain tumor.
Burrell, who knows the account holder personally, simply responded: “Thank you.”
Expert Resources on Brain Cancer
How Parents Find Strength in Children During Cancer Battle
Facing cancer as a parent can be incredibly daunting. Fearful thoughts about leaving your children may creep into your mind and add even more to your overflowing plate.
“No matter what your prognosis is, it’s essential to talk openly and honestly with kids,” said Laura Nathan-Garner, Director of Strategic Communications at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“Cancer patients with children can have increased motivation to endure difficult treatment but may also be concerned about the emotional impact of the illness on their offspring,” Dr. Cindy Moore of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center explained to The ASCO Post, an oncology newspaper.
Based on Burrell’s cancer journey posts, she remains focused on the impact her diagnosis is having on the short and long-term psyche of her son.
Dr. Moore said parents living with cancer should seek out an opportunity to discuss their biggest concerns with their healthcare teams so an effective communication plan can be created to explain their diagnosis to their kids.
Understanding Burrell’s Glioblastoma Diagnosis
Diagnosing gliomas involves a multi-step approach that includes clinical assessment, imaging studies, histopathological examination, and molecular testing.
As patients are diagnosed, they’re observed for typical glioma symptoms. These may include:
- Headaches
- Seizures
- Cognitive or Behavioral Changes
- Visual or Speech Changes and Impairments
- Loss of Body Weight and Deconditioning
- Changes in mental function, mood, or personality
- Changes in speech
- Sensory changes in hearing, smell, and sight
- Loss of balance
- Changes in your pulse and breathing rate
During the clinical assessment, the physician will take a detailed history, focusing on the onset and progression of symptoms. Since gliomas can present with non-specific symptoms that overlap with other neurological conditions, ruling out conditions like stroke, infections, or inflammatory disorders is essential during the initial clinical evaluation.
Patients then undergo a neurological exam that tests cranial nerve function, motor strength and coordination, sensory function, and cognitive abilities.
Next, patients undergo an MRI, which provides doctors with a visualization of the tumor.
“If you’re suspected of having a tumor on imaging and our neurosurgeons think that tumor can come out, they will take a piece of that tumor out first and confirm in the operating room and with our pathologists that, in fact, what they are looking at is a tumor,” Dr. Alexandra Miller, Director of the Neuro-Oncologist Division at NYU Langone Health, tells SurvivorNet. “And if it is, they resect it at that time. It’s not usually a two-step procedure.”
If surgery cannot be performed due to tumor location or patient-specific factors, a less invasive stereotactic biopsy can be obtained. Once the tissue sample is obtained, it’s examined under a microscope for molecular testing. At this stage, the tumor is given a grade, which determines how aggressive it is.
WATCH: Molecular testing for glioma patients
- Grade I-II gliomas – These are considered low-grade and tend to grow slowly. “The grade one is a very indolent, benign tumor that can be cured with surgery alone,” Dr. Henry Friedman, Deputy Director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke, tells SurvivorNet.
- Grade III gliomas—These are considered high-grade and tend to grow more rapidly. They are typically classified as malignant and require more aggressive treatment, which can include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
- Grade IV gliomas – These are the most aggressive gliomas, which are locally aggressive and require treatment intensification. Glioblastomas are the most common grade IV glioma, “which is by far the most well-known and feared tumor in the lay population and, quite frankly, the medical population,” Dr. Friedman explains.
How Are Gliomas Treated?
Burrell has already undergone surgery to remove her tumor, followed by chemotherapy and radiation, which helped extract the remaining bits of the cancer that surgery could not remove. Specific details of her ongoing treatment remain unclear at this time. However, the route she took early on is typical for glioblastoma treatment.
“The first step is always the neurosurgery. How much can you take out? Is it safe to do surgery? Do you have to rely on a biopsy? Can you even do a biopsy?” Dr. Friedman tells SurvivorNet.
The main treatment options are:
Observation—Some benign, small, and without symptoms of gliomas or tumors located in inoperable locations can be recommended for observation.
Surgery is often the first-line treatment for gliomas, with the goal of achieving maximal safe resection, where the largest amount of tumor is removed without causing significant neurologic deficits. For low-grade gliomas, surgery alone can sometimes be curative.
After surgery, pathologists examine the tumor tissue to understand its features and molecular makeup. This added step helps doctors outline an appropriate treatment.
“We go through a very elaborate process of diagnostics, which includes looking at it under the microscope through our pathology team,” Dr. Friedman explained to SurvivorNet.
WATCH: The Role of Surgery in Treating Gliomas
Radiation and chemotherapy are often needed after surgery because removing the tumor completely is usually not possible due to the tumor’s ability to spread into surrounding brain tissue.
Radiation therapy uses high–energy X–rays to target and kill tumor cells. It is often used after surgery to target residual tumor cells.
Chemotherapy – These medications kill or slow the growth of cancer cells. Chemotherapy can be used alongside radiation or following radiation and is often used in higher-grade tumors.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved some drug treatments, including temozolomide (Temodar), to help patients with this aggressive disease. Temozolomide is a chemotherapy drug patients can take after surgery and radiation therapy.
Targeted therapy and immunotherapy are newer treatments designed to target specific genetic mutations in the tumor or to stimulate the immune system to fight the cancer. Their role in the treatment of gliomas is continuing to evolve.
Other FDA-approved drugs for treating glioblastoma include lomustine (Gleostine), intravenous carmustine (Bicnu), carmustine wafer implants, and Avastin (bevacizumab).
Avastin is a targeted drug therapy that blocks glioblastoma cells from requesting new blood vessels that feed and allow the tumor to grow.
The FDA approved Vorasidenib, an IDH inhibitor. It works by blocking the mutated enzyme, slowing tumor growth, and extending the time before disease progression. IDH mutant gliomas tend to grow more slowly and have a better prognosis than IDH wild-type gliomas.
Dr. Alexandra Miller tells SurvivorNet that Vorasidenib is a “huge breakthrough for people with IDH mutant tumors.”
“What I tell my patients is that we have these effective treatments, but what they do is they delay the time to when this tumor comes back. Only in exceptional circumstances would we ever talk about getting rid of one of these cancers, a few,” Dr. Daniel Wahl, professor of radiation and oncology at the University of Michigan, tells SurvivorNet.
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