Popular basketball content creator Tristan Jass announced he’s preparing to undergo surgery to remove a brain tumor.
“After 6 years of annual MRI’s of my brain, the doctors have finally decided it is now time to remove the tumor to see exactly what it is,” Jass, 25, wrote via X on Saturday, December 6. “I can’t lie this is pretty scary but I’ve been mentally preparing for the past few weeks and I’m ready to go to battle.”
He added, “Thank you for all the prayers and support! It doesn’t go unnoticed. Time to lock in for surgery! I’ll see you guys on the other side!”
Jass expanded on the surgery in a video shared with his 5.6 million YouTube subscribers on Saturday.
After getting his yearly MRI in November, Jass said he could “feel the vibe totally shift in the room” when his neurosurgeon pulled up the results.
“You see a small little dot in the middle of the cyst,” Jass recalled. “I’m sitting there and I’m like, ‘What the f*** is this? Is this cancer?’ He hasn’t told me yet. I’m freaking out.”
Jass’ neurosurgeon recommended a colleague with “more tools in his tool bag,” who told Jass shortly after the MRI that he would need to have a right craniotomy temporal lobectomy and tumor resection.”
In essence, Jass’ surgery will aim to detach a piece of his skull to remove his tumor.
“They’re actually going to be removing a piece of my brain permanently, which is very scary,” Jass said. “Becuase they can’t say for sure what that’s going to do to me.”
In a video posted on November 11, Jass said there’s “a less than one percent chance that my speech can be affected, memory can be affected.”
“The surgery is going to be about three to four hours, with an additional two hours on top of that because they want to get MRIs of my brain literally while my brain is open to make sure they got everything they wanted to get out,” Jass explained in his December 6 video.
Jass’ surgeon said the “best case scenario” for the surgery would see him “up and walking around” in the ICU the day after the procedure.
“Then we’re looking at three-to-four weeks recovery, where I’ll probably just be at my house not doing anything, which is going to be a very tough thing for me,” Jass admitted. “I’m always doing something. I’ve never sat in a bed and laid down for three-to-four weeks. And who knows, it could be longer, it could be shorter. Everybody’s body works differently.”
Jass acknowledged that he would have kept his health journey “private,” but explained why he wanted to keep his dedicated followers in the loop.
“I’ve always documented these battles that I’ve gone through, whether it’s an injury, whether it’s me throwing myself in the fire playing professional basketball,” he said. “I’ve always loved documenting these different experiences and this one is completely different from any of that.”
He added, “I wanted to film all of this and document everything because it’s going to be such a tough battle and a tough time. I just want to show anybody out there that, whether you’re going through brain surgery, heart surgery, anything that could be scary, I’m a human, too. Yeah, I got all this social media stuff going on and everything I do, but I’m a human just like you guys.”
