Former Ledger staffer Tracey Gamer-Fanning founded the CT Brain Tumor Alliance

By Ronni Newton/We-HA.com (with additional reporting by the CT Jewish Ledger)

Tracey Gamer-Fanning was diagnosed with a grade III brain tumor in 2006. She was just 36 years old, had two small children, and was told she had three to five years to live.

Instead she lived for 12 years, succumbing Friday morning to the tumor that could never be completely removed by surgery and had begun aggressively growing again, recently doubling in size.

In her words, she often said that she not only survived those 12 years, but she thrived.

“I co-founded the Connecticut Brain Tumor Alliance (CTBTA) in 2006; aided in the legalization of medical marijuana in Connecticut; been voted onto the American Board of Internal Medicine Oncology Board with all this extra time I’ve been given. I’ve met hundreds of brain tumor patients and their families and continue to be their advocate until the day I no longer can,” Gamer-Fanning wrote in a January op-ed, in which she spoke out against an exorbitant increase in the pricing practice of drugs for brain cancer patients.

She spent years advocating for medical marijuana before it was legalized. She had suffered from devastating headaches and other side effects of the strong medications she was taking before personally turning to marijuana, and said it gave her back her life.

Since its founding, the Connecticut Brain Tumor Alliance has raised more than $2 million for brain tumor patients and their caregivers. Its mission is “providing patient outreach and patient assistance funds for local families, furthering cutting-edge brain tumor research in Connecticut, and improving the patient experience at the state’s best brain tumor treatment centers.”

“Don’t feel sorry for her. Don’t look at this as a tragedy. Making lemonade out of lemons doesn’t even begin to describe Tracey’s life,” Gamer-Fanning’s husband, Greg Shimer, said Saturday.

When Tracey was diagnosed with a brain tumor, it focused her, made her appreciate everything, Shimer said. “She wasn’t afraid to give strangers a hug, to say what she thought. She lived two or three lives in the past 12 years while the rest of us lived just one.”

Shimer and Gamer-Fanning were married almost six years ago. They had met when they were college students and reconnected in early 2006 when Shimer decided to look up Gamer-Fanning who was working at the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, where she had worked for three years, quickly becoming a popular co-worker and an integral part of the Ledger team.

“Tracey began her career at the Ledger in 2003 as an account executive and worked here until her diagnosis in 2006,” said Ledger Associate Publisher Leslie Iarusso, who joined the staff as production manager prior to Gamer-Fanning’s arrival. “During her tenure at the Ledger she championed the Ledger’s secular publication, Pets Press. Gamer-Fanning turned the publication into a successful statewide source for all types of pets. Her compassion and caring made her the perfect ambassador. She traveled all over Connecticut and was very active in pet-related events that included rescue awareness and fundraising.”

When Shimer called Gamer-Fanning at the Connecticut Jewish Ledger in September 2006 he was shocked to learn that she had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her daughter, Shaye, was just 18 months old, and Mitchell was four.

Gamer-Fanning had surgery to remove the tumor, but they could only get about 75 percent of it.

Over the years, Shimer asked her to marry him at least six times.

“She was afraid she would get really sick one day,” he said, but he persisted. They had a simple wedding in 2013. “It just felt as natural as breathing,” he said of the decision to be together.

The couple had a blended family – his three grown daughters (ages 23, 21, and 19) – and her two children, Mitchell, 17, and Shaye, 13, who lived with them in their West Hartford home.

In January 2017, Gamer-Fanning had another surgery because the tumor had started growing again. She briefly tried chemotherapy that spring, but knew it wasn’t a cure and the side effects made her miserable. “She accepted it, she just said, ‘Screw it,’” Shimer said. “She didn’t want other treatments, didn’t want to be a lab rat.”

In September 2018, Gamer-Fanning attended the CTBTA’s Path of Hope fundraiser in Fairfield. The tumor’s rapid growth had really taken a toll by then, Shimer said. She had lost much of the function of the left side of her body, and was exhausted.

“That’s when she went into hospice,” said Shimer.

Gamer-Fanning died at home on Friday, Oct. 26.

“All who knew Tracey heard her shout, ‘I love you’ during and after every encounter,” her friend Sarah Townswick said Saturday. She unabashedly showered love on everyone she knew. She fought brain cancer so she could be present for her children, Mitchell and Shaye, and her beloved husband, Greg. She was a force of positive energy and love that was contagious,” said Townswick. “She never shared her struggle, focusing on her many blessing and the positive aspects of her life. Only her inner circle knew her daily pain and challenges.”

“Tracey embodied hope. It’s hard to imagine that someone so vivacious and alive, I mean savoring every moment alive, is gone,” said Gamer-Fanning’s friend Beth Ryan. “Just like that. She had a way of making you feel supported and loved, simply because she understood your pain like her own. Empathy. She lived and breathed it. And joy. So. Much. Joy.”

A memorial for Gamer-Fanning will be held on Saturday, Nov. 3, at 6 p.m., at the Mandell JCC, 335 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford.

As word spread of Gamer-Fanning’s death, many posted tributes on her Facebook page. They called her a hero, a fierce fighter, a warrior, a “beacon for all of our community … courageous, determined and hopeful to the bitter end.”

“As hard as all this is, she never wanted people to feel sorry for her. She wanted people to look at her, to take stock,” Shimer said.

This article is reprinted with permission of WeHa.com. It includes additional reporting by the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.

To read Tracey’s obituary – in her own words – visit blogapy.com/tracey-gamer-fanning-shimer-obituary/.