Motivated by tragedy, this former Philly neuroradiologist became a top brain cancer fundraiser

For 34 years, Christine Emery followed a careful ritual in small, dark rooms inside Philadelphia-area hospitals, studying MRIs and CT scans of patients’ brains.

A neuroradiologist, Emery traced with her eyes the contours of each brain. She started with the stem, which controls a person’s breathing, then moved up to the cerebellum, one hemisphere after another, meticulously searching for masses, bleeding, or other hints of trouble.

Often, in this quiet space, Emery was the first to discover that a patient was about to receive a devastating diagnosis.

“It was absolutely heartbreaking,” said Emery, 68. “And that emotion never faded.”

Emery retired in 2022 and moved with her husband, Don, a longtime medical director of Chester County Hospital’s intensive care unit, to a small community near a country club in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

There, they grew friendly with another couple who also planned to spend their retirement in a newly built Rehoboth home: Elizabeth and Patrick McGuiness.

And as with so many patients whose MRIs Emery had once examined, the McGuinesses’ lives had been upended by crushing medical diagnoses.

In February 2020, their then-27-year-old son, Nicholas, a onetime volunteer firefighter with a booming laugh, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. A few months later, Patrick, a gregarious surfing enthusiast, was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer.

On July 19, 2022, after a desperate fight to outlast his grim prognosis, Nicholas McGuiness died.

A month later, on Aug. 29, his father died at age 65.

“I try to only dwell on the positive,” Elizabeth McGuiness said during a recent interview. “The positive was, for their last two and a half years, I was making them their favorite breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

She found another source of comfort in Emery, who offered to start raising money, in Nicholas’ memory, for brain tumor research.

The nonprofit that Emery formed with McGuiness, the Brain Cancer Answer Foundation, has since staged a pair of charity golf tournaments, and raised more than $200,000 for the National Brain Tumor Society, the second-highest total among 133 community-based fundraising groups.

In October, Brain Cancer Answer will stage its third McGuiness Memorial Golf Tournament and Auction at Rehoboth’s Kings Creek Country Club.

Promoting the importance of brain tumor research, though, has become a full-time calling for Emery. Earlier this month, after golfing with some friends at the country club, she handed gray ribbons to passersby.

Emery explained to each that May is brain tumor awareness month in the United States, and gray is the effort’s signature color. Few seemed to have any familiarity with the cause.

“If I had handed out pink ribbons, they would have known that it was for breast cancer awareness,” Emery said. “They didn’t know about [brain tumor awareness]. We have to change that.”

The McGuinesses had little sense, at the start of 2020, that their family would soon be reshaped by tragedy.

Elizabeth and Patrick had raised Nicholas, and his older brother, Alexander, in Fairfax County, Va. Despite the close proximity to Washington — and its football team, now known as the Commanders — Patrick, a Media native, ensured that his boys were Philadelphia Eagles fans.

Tall and athletic, with a mop of dark hair, Nicholas had graduated from Radford University with a business degree in 2015.

“He was just an amazing gentleman,” Elizabeth McGuiness said. “A hard worker, and as handsome as could be.”

Beginning in 2017, Nicholas worked for two years as a volunteer firefighter in Loudoun County, Va.

“He was trying to find his calling,” said Alexander, 35. “As he got older, he got more comfortable stepping outside of his comfort zone.”

That open spirit inspired him to move in 2019 to San Diego, where he began working as a supply chain administrator for General Dynamics Nassco, a ship repair contractor for the U.S. Navy.

McGuiness and her husband, a longtime customer service director for SAAB Defense and Security USA, were meanwhile in the final stages of building what they called their “forever home,” a three-story property in Rehoboth Beach that they imagined would soon be filled with family gatherings and get-togethers with old friends, a carousel of laughter and warmth.

On Feb. 11, 2020, Nicholas called his mother.

“Mom,” he said, “I have a really bad headache.”

McGuiness encouraged him to go to an emergency room. Instead, she recalled, he went to a walk-in clinic, and was told that he’d probably had a migraine headache.

The next day, Nicholas called again. He’d driven himself to work, but now felt immobilized by intense pain in his head.

Hours later, McGuiness’ phone rang once more.

On the other end was an emergency room doctor, who told her that Nicholas had an inoperable brain tumor, anaplastic astrocytoma.

The doctor’s description of the tumor remained etched in her memory: It was the size of a tangerine.

“So we packed him up,” McGuiness said, “and brought him home.”

A few months later, Patrick, who had been struggling with several underlying health issues, learned that he had prostate cancer. He explained to his sons that his disease had likely metastasized.

“I said, ‘What does that mean?’” Alexander recalled.

“He said, ‘Well, unfortunately, that’s the beginning of the end.’”

While the rest of the world was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the McGuinesses plunged headfirst into their own health crisis. Faced with overwhelming heartache, the family drew closer.

“It’s just the deck of cards we were dealt,” Alexander said. “If their time is short, you want to spend all of your time with your loved ones.”

Visits with cancer experts in Pennsylvania, Maryland, California, and Texas failed to yield a cure for Nicholas.

Through their final summer together, Patrick focused primarily on trying to lift his ailing son’s spirits.

“He always stressed to us to not take anything for granted,” Alexander said, “because any day could be your last.”

Emery, a Havertown native, was met often by reminders of humans’ fleeting mortality during her career as a neuroradiologist, which she began in 1988 at Pennsylvania Hospital.

“Someone would go to the emergency room because they felt dizzy, or their vision wasn’t good, or they’d had a seizure,” she said. “And they’d have a scan, and have no idea what sort of horrifying diagnosis was going to be made.”

Emery moved to Christiana Hospital, in Newark, in 1999, and worked there until she retired.

After meeting the McGuiness family in 2022, she felt compelled to offer her help in some constructive way.

“It was just so heartbreaking,” Emery said. “You just had to step in and to channel those emotions into something positive.”

McGuiness remembers Emery approaching her at a pub in Rehoboth Beach, and volunteering to lead a fundraising effort for brain tumor research.

“She was true to her word,” McGuiness said. “She’s been working on this nonstop.”

That initial pitch blossomed into a golf tournament and auction that attracted a plethora of sponsors. In 2023, the organization raised $101,000; a year later, they collected $112,000, and were recognized with an award from the National Brain Tumor Society.

“It’s obviously incredible to see how it’s grown,” Alexander said. “We’re doing everything we can to keep Nicholas’ memory alive, and to help anyone who unfortunately will develop a brain tumor.”

For Emery, the nonprofit’s work has reinforced the perspective that she gleaned from decades in neuroradiology.

“You really have to appreciate each and every day,” she said. “And if you have people that you care about, make sure they know it.”