Shelbie Howden
Wear A Christmas Hat Day
Fundraising for Brain Tumour Research
Story
I am supporting Wear A Christmas Hat Day and raising funds for Brain Tumour Research, a charity close to my heart due to my Auntie, this is her story.
Hello and thank you for reading my story about my experience of being diagnosed with a brain tumour and also the lead up to the time of diagnosis, my name is Kay and I am a 42-year-old female.
My life changed on Saturday 26th September 2020 at approximately 9.15am, that is when all the little signs I had been having finally came to light. For a few previous months I had been experiencing an odd headache which came and went, nothing enough to trouble a Doctor with (so I thought), I had become more tired than normal, again nothing to trouble a Doctor with (so I thought), my face sometimes seemed dishevelled in a morning, I put this down to sleeping in a funny position. But seemingly there is a good chance that I was having seizures during the night because the tumour was growing at the back of my head and when I laid on it this brought on a seizure. You know nothing about this in the morning other than feeling "out of sorts", again I didn't believe that I needed medical treatment. In hindsight there was lots of dots but nothing I could have joined together for one moment to make me think I may have a brain tumour!
That is pretty much the run up to that Saturday morning when I was spending the weekend with my partner Pauls parents at their caravan in Saltfleet. I woke at around 8.50 am and went and asked Jill and Doug (Pauls parents) if they would like a cup of tea, I didn't feel too good, and they said you go back to bed, and we will bring you a cup of tea. That's all I remember. The next thing I know is that two paramedics are standing over me asking questions, I had suffered a 15-minute tonic clonic seizure and didn't remember a thing about it, something I had never experienced before. They were absolutely fabulous, the best.
The decision was made that I would be taken to the Princess Diana of Wales Hospital in Grimsby for further tests. There I had CT Scan and it showed a mass on my brain and would need further investigation. The Doctors,Nurses, Porters etc at Grimsby A + E were also absolutely fabulous, the best.
Because of the results of the CT Scan, it was decided that I would be Blue Lighted over to Hull Royal Infirmary Neurosurgery Department for a MRI Scan which showed I was suffering from a Convexity Meningioma tumour and surgery would need to be performed. Due to the lack of theatre spots, I was discharged to come back at a later date for surgery.
The surgery was rescheduled, and I was admitted back to Hull Royal Infirmary on the 8th October 2020, the Consultant, Mr C Rajarman, came back to my ward after his shift especially to see me before my operation to explain what was going to happen from a surgical perspective.
I was to have two operations one on Friday 9th October and one on Monday 12th October, the first operation, which took approximately 2.5 hours I believe, was to enter through my groin area with essentially "glue on wires" which were fed up through my body to cut off the blood supply to as much as the tumour as possible, the reason for this procedure is that it would make the operation to remove the tumour less risky with the blood supply being cut to it This was called a Cerebral angiography and glue embolisation. The operation was a success and to be fair did not feel too bad after it.
I spent the weekend in Hull Royal in preparation for the "big" job and boy was I frightened! I think one of the worst parts about it was that due to the COVID 19 situation only Paul my partner was allowed to visit for one hour per day (although the staff were brilliant, and I think their watches must have accidentally stopped sometimes wink wink) and no other visitors were allowed, very lonely place at times and too much time to think about the pending operation. Anxious times.
On the day of the operation, I was first into theatre at approximately 8.30am and the operation was to last around 5.5 hours. this procedure was called a right sided brianlab guided craniotomy and excision.
Thank goodness to say, once again the operation was a success, and it was believed that Mr Raj and his team removed all of the tumour. This was then sent to histology to which I would get the results at a later time (fingers and toes were crossed all the time!).
I was discharged from Hull Royal on Wednesday 14th October 2020, incredibly just two days after surgery to start my recovery at home, lots of tablets to take which have gradually been weaned down to just an anti-epilepsy tablet twice a day.
I received a phone call on the 28th October with the results from the Histology tests and it was revealed the tumour I had was Benign! To say I was happy would have been an understatement. I will now just need to have a MRI scan in January to make sure that they got it all out, which as I said they believe they did, and hopefully that will it.
I started back to work on the Monday 30th November and feel so lucky that although it was a major operation with chances of complications, I have come out the other side able to live a normal life without any complications. I still get tired quite easily but it is getting less and less with each day that goes by and is to be expected given the invasive nature of the operation apparently.
The NHS have been superb and I owe my life to them, each and every staff member throughout my stay in Hospital were brilliant. We are so lucky in this Country to have a service called the NHS!
A special big thank you goes to Mr Rajarman, my surgeon, he was an absolute gentleman.
Well, that's my story and thankfully it DOES have a happy ending.
Happy Christmas to everyone, I certainly intend to enjoy this one more so than I usually do!
Kay
