Jason Collins is battling stage 4 glioblastoma, ‘one of the deadliest forms’ of brain cancer

Ex-NBA player Jason Collins — the league’s first openly gay player — was just beginning his serious health battle … revealing he had been diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, “one of the deadliest forms” of brain cancer.

Collins, who announced earlier this year that he had a brain tumor, described his journey in an interview with ESPN …he said he first noticed symptoms in August.

The biggest problems he faced included short-term memory loss and impaired comprehension… and after testing he discovered he had glio – an incredibly aggressive form of the disease.

“Imagine a monster with tentacles spreading across the base of my brain the width of a baseball,” Collins said. He added that it is impossible to completely remove the mass without coming out of the procedure “different.”

“My glio is extraordinary for all the wrong reasons, and is ‘wild type’ – it has all these mutations that make it even more deadly and harder to treat.”

But Collins fought — starting with drugs, then radiation and chemotherapy… and it worked. He said he was slowly starting to come out of his fog.

Even with all the treatments, Collins said the average prognosis is 11-14 months.

“If that’s all the time I have left, I’d rather spend it trying a treatment that could one day be a new standard of care for everyone.”