Myself and my mum are taking part in the Brainathlon Half to raise money for Brain Research UK, Brain Tumour Research and Epilepsy Research UK. 

I lost my grandad earlier this year, who was diagnosed with over 10 brain tumours in July 2020. It all began whilst I was working at my desk from home and my nan had called me to say they were having a coffee and he wasn't sitting still and kept walking about because his leg was going numb. A few minutes later, my nan started screaming down the phone saying he's collapsed. My grandad had suffered a seizure. He was rushed to the hospital and by this time myself and my mum had booked flights to Spain for the following morning. When we arrived he was very confused and didn't understand what happened as he couldn't remember anything. He was taken for an MRI which is when our world's changed forever. From that day, myself and my family worked tirelessly to get him treated. The doctors were not sure if it was operable or not. In December, after battling with the Spanish healthcare officials we got an appointment with the neurosurgeon who said that he wanted to atleast try to operate on the bigger tumours. He allowed my grandad to go away and think about it and make a decision. A few weeks later he had a follow up appointment and decided he wanted to do what the doctors thought would be best and that was to proceed with surgery. He had suffered another two seizures by this point but was still able to walk, use the bathroom and everything alone.

We then returned in April 2021 (the earliest we could get out there due to pandemic) to find that he had deteriorated to the point that he had lost all his weight and he was having to wear nappies due to not being able to control his urine.  We had spoken to him every single day from diagnosis via facetime and in daily contact with an interpreter we had in Spain who was monitoring the situation for us, but no one realised how far his deterioration had gone until we saw him personally again. We had planned to be in Spain for one week however after driving to the hospital and not leaving until we spoke to the surgeon and explained how badly he had deteriorated, they decided to operate a week later, so we extended our stay. 

He was operated on quite some time after diagnosis due to a number of delays with the Spanish health system which we filed a complaint against. He fought through the 9hr long surgery like an absolute warrior. We were told that they were not able to remove all tumours so they decided to remove two of the biggest tumours, covering almost all of the top of his brain were very large and sticky, meaning they had to cut out some of his brain to remove the entire tumours. He was kept in an induced coma for two days to allow time for his brain to recover from surgery. Once he woke up he was encountered with ventilators, feeding tubes etc, determined to speak and move, however he was not able to. After a few weeks he started to say a few words, move his arms, point his fingers and eat soft foods again luckily with the support of my nan and my uncle who managed to get out there once we returned. All our family would facetime him from his hospital bed in Spain everyday to ensure we saw him and most importantly kept his brain stimulated. We did that for a number of months until he was stable enough to be moved to a residential clinical hospice where he would undertake rehab and physiotherapy. Unfortunately he was only allowed one visit a week for 45mins, meaning that no one could see or call him which was devastating.  On the evening of 27th June 2021, whilst we were trying to contact the hospice to put the Portuguese Euro football game on for him, we received the dreaded call that he had suffered cardiac arrest and passed away.

Now my grandad was a very proud and strong willed man, who would fight whatever came his way and would go to the end of the earth for his family. But heartbreakingly he couldn't fight it any longer and now we must live our lives without him. 

I feel his story is so important as it captures how life can change within a split second and the importance of being checked out by your GP if you don't feel right.

There is so much more we need to learn about the brain and it's intricacies that will help save someone else's grandad in years to come. And I promised him that he would be okay and I couldn't do it, so I want to be able to feel as though I've been able to help someone else even if it is only the smallest amount I can. 

Thank you for reading, supporting and helping me and my mum raise as much as we can for this great cause.