Neil Fachon was a 19-year-old engineering student at Northeastern University when he was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG). His family was with him at Mass General Hospital when the neuro-oncologist said he had three months to live.

“Six, if you start radiation. ” Shipwrecked so completely, Neil lapsed into a rare moment of self-pity, but with no time to lose, he and his family regrouped and searched-out every conceivable treatment.

After evaluating as many options as possible as quickly as possible, Neil chose to enroll in a clinical trial in Houston, Texas, at the Burzynski Clinic. Though dogged by controversy throughout his career, Dr.

Stanislaw Burzynski has achieved miraculous results treating many patients with “incurable” cancers, including some with DIPG. Through his journey, Neil had to cope with far more than just DIPG.

The medical system that was supposed to help him instead proved as intractable as the disease in his brain. DIPG is the first book in a trilogy, The Jester Knight Chronicles.

DIPG covers the time from Neil’s misdiagnoses to diagnosis, and from choosing and commencing treatment to being denied treatment. Through a long series of moves and counter moves, Neil was caught in a life and death chess match against multiple opponents simultaneously.

. .