Nilufer Sehriyari

Nilufer was born on March 15, 1972 to a Turkish mother and Iranian father. She spent her childhood in Iran and Turkey, but she always had an affinity for the United States. She started Kindergarten in Istanbul International Community School when she was five years old. She was only child, but at IICS, she made friends from all over the world. She was attending a Ballet School at the same time and she was always the star of the School Musicals.

After High School, she first studied American and then English Literature in Bilkent University (Ankara) and Bosphorous University (Istanbul). After some time, she decided to change her major and her school. She was accepted to the Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She headed to Los Angeles to study Intercultural and International Relations. She enjoyed her years in Los Angeles, California. She was so close to the American culture from the very beginning of her life. The United States became a second home to her.

In 1999, after receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree, she returned to Istanbul and started to work in a major advertising company called Manajans Thompson. Her later years of working were spent in the field of Business Development. She enjoyed a lot of success and was always loved by everyone around her.

Nilufer and her boyfriend became business partners and had their own business start-up. She was partly living in a little town in the Aegean Coastline and enjoying life to the fullest. She swimming and running for hours and having the healthiest life style on the coastline when all of a sudden, she was diagnosed with a grade 4 GBM brain tumor. From there, her life took a turn and she lived like a “little giant” for the next two and a quarter years. She had two surgeries on her tumor. One of the surgeries lasted eight hours. The eight hour surgery was when the whole of the 4 cm tumor was removed on August 5, 2009.

For the next two and a quarter years, she lived in such a way that people called her ‘the little giant.’ She lived a full life in such a short time: she had a marriage, then a divorce, and then another surgery in Tel Aviv. She did all this living in between many visits to her doctor. She tried Novocure as well. She worked with Professor Stupp in Lausanne. She took trips to Canada, visited the French Riviera, all the while experiencing regressions, aggressions and finally a little stroke on her left hand. Through it all, always, she had a survivor’s heart. She was always confident in herself, always believed in herself, waking up with a smile each morning, hopeful.

Then, in October 2011, while in she was in Germany for the Dendritic Cell Therapy with Professor Gorter, she fell asleep one night and never woke up. She passed away in a Hospice in Koln on 29th of November 2011.