Jason Collins, NBA's First Openly Gay Player, Reveals Heartbreaking Diagnosis

Back in September, the NBA announced that former center Jason Collins, the league's first openly gay player, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The 46-year-old has been serving as a league ambassador since the end of his playing days.

On Thursday, Collins opened up in an interview with ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, revealing that his brain tumor is actually Stage 4 glioblastoma, one of the most virulent types of brain cancer.

"I have Stage 4 glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. It came on incredibly fast," Collins told Shelburne.

Collins promises 'a hell of a fight'

After marrying his longtime partner Brunson Green in May, Collins begin experiencing symptoms, including problems with his mental clarity and short-term memory. In late summer, he underwent a CT scan at UCLA, which is when the former first-round pick first realized something was seriously wrong.

"Something was really wrong, though. I was in the CT machine at UCLA for all of five minutes before the tech pulled me out and said they were going to have me see a specialist," Collins explained. "I've had enough CTs in my life to know they last longer than five minutes and whatever the tech had seen on the first images had to be bad."

Collins said if he did not seek treatment, he would likely be dead within six weeks to three months. However, Collins instead has elected to "fight" his condition as fiercely as possible.

"We aren't going to sit back and let this cancer kill me without giving it a hell of a fight," he explained.

"We're going to try to hit it first, in ways it's never been hit: with radiation and chemotherapy and immunotherapy that's still being studied but offers the most promising frontier of cancer treatment for this type of cancer."

What kind of treatment is Collins using?

The average prognosis for Collins' tumor, using standard treatment options, is 11-to-14 months, but the center's case is a little different.

Collins shared that his tumor is resistant to the typical chemotherapy used against glioblastoma. As a result, he is undergoing treatment at a clinic in Singapore using a method that "acts as a Trojan horse, seeking out proteins only found in glioblastomas to deliver its toxic payload past the blood-brain barrier and straight into my tumors."

"The goal is to keep fighting the progress of the tumors long enough for a personalized immunotherapy to be made for me, and to keep me healthy enough to receive that immunotherapy once it's ready," Collins said.

More on Jason Collins

A first-round pick of the Houston Rockets out of Stanford in 2001, Collins debuted with the New Jersey Nets and helped the team reach back-to-back NBA Finals in his first two professional seasons.

He played for six NBA franchises over the course of 13 seasons, averaging 3.6 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. In April 2013, Collins became the first active male athlete in the history of the four major North American sports leagues to come out as gay.

His twin brother Jarron also played alongside him at Stanford and had his own stint in the NBA.