New Dad gets a health renewal after being diagnosed with incurable cancer (exclusive)

Maggie Hanratty was worried and anticipated the arrival of her first child along with her husband, Eddie Hanratty, when she ended up in the hospital for another reason.

Eddie, 30, was diagnosed with Grade 3 astrocytoma, a rapidly growing malignant brain tumor.

When talking to people in January, the couple explained that doctors had discovered a 7.3 centimeter-long tumor (almost orange size), and they needed intensive surgery while Maggie was pregnant for 34 weeks.

When Eddie tells Maggie he’s been sent to the hospital after an MRI, she says, “I thought it was a joke at first,” and fails to understand how their lives can understand such a drastic direction.

In June 2024, one week after the MRI, Eddie underwent cranial myocardial surgery. This was subjected to a surgical procedure in which sections of the skull had to be removed to access the brain. To remove some of the tumor, part of the frontal lobe of Eddy had to be removed. Doctors were able to remove about 98% of the tumor, but Eddie warned that due to extensive surgery, it could be different.

“He wakes up, he’s the same person. He’s crying because he’s the same, and he’s joking as soon as he wakes up,” Maggie recalls as he shares updates with people. “It was a long recovery.”

Still, Maggie says Eddie, now 32, has been given a prognosis of “up to eight years.”

“He was 30 at the time and we were trying to understand what he needed to do. I met an oncologist and he got 98% of the tumors, but he didn’t want to ruin anything deeper in his brain, so he said he needed to do chemotherapy and radiation,” she explains. “I think they got it all, but there are some cancer cells that you can’t see.”

His doctor recommended chemotherapy and radiation at the same time for six weeks. Six weeks after the total treatment, he received 6 months of chemotherapy.

Maggie, 34, is happy to share that she completed her treatment in April 2025, and is now showing a “stable scan.” In other words, current treatments work by continuing to control cancer.

He had no many side effects while undergoing treatment, but she says he is feeling the effects now.

“One day he’s really tired or one day he’s really nauseated. It’s probably going to happen the next year until it’s completely out of his body, but he’s doing great things,” Maggie shares.

Maggie also points out that Eddie is “more emotional now” as the surgery affected his right frontal lobe.

“He’s easily irritated. He wasn’t a very emotional person, but now he’s very emotional and really stressed out very quickly, so he’s undergoing treatment to help him through it,” she shares. “Otherwise, he’s doing great things. We’ve been living our lives and trying to do everything we can.

Just two weeks after he underwent surgery, the couple’s baby, Mira, was born. Their daughter is now 14 months old and Maggie says, “She’s the best thing that’s happened to us.”

“She was meant to be here, so we ended up pregnant unexpectedly, but if she didn’t, she would have had to wait another year for him to get chemo from his system. I think she’s going to be here for him,” she says.

Eddie will need to be scanned every three months until next year. If your doctor continues to watch a “stable scan,” you can move check-in every six months.

Maggie chronicles Eddie and her family’s trip to Tiktok. There, I found a community with others who were on a similar health trip.

“I wanted to share his story because there’s not enough research. I know there’s more research on glioblastoma, but so much more research on astrocytoma,” she says. “His doctor says he sees these types of tumors and people, usually in his 60s, and he’s 30 years old.”

Maggie’s first viral video comes from her pregnancy announcement and took place at her wedding. She says it prompted her to document both the highs and the lows.

“I thought if you’re sharing happy moments in our lives, if you’re like a daughter, then it’s something that helps someone else, raises awareness, and gives us more money to save someone else’s life, so we should share everything we’re going through,” she says. “If that could extend his prognosis further from eight years, I’d done my job. We should share happy and tough moments.

Through connections with others, Maggie helped her family support medical care.

“I share the story and the fact that people are aware of certain symptoms that can lead to such a diagnosis. I tell people to be checked. Even if you’re 30 and you think you’re healthy, you’ll still be checked. You fight to get an MRI.

Maggie shares that Eddie’s surgery alone is still paying off medical expenses, including bills worth $300,000. After giving birth, Maggie also has her own medical bills.

“As soon as he had surgery, my sister started Gofundme. He received Bill after Bill. He couldn’t work for a year and Gofundme helped us a lot,” she says. “It paid for so many bills. He was able to stay home with our baby while he was recovering and with his newborn.”