Mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour in March 2023. Headaches had started September 2022 and after being told by her doctor it wasn’t anything serious she left it for three months before getting a second opinion. This doctor referred her for a CT scan and it was another three months before the hospital confirmed it was a tumour that needed further investigation. Six months in total with a tumour that was growing. Bearing in mind mum had successfully beaten lung cancer five years before, all of which would have been on her medical notes.

Her eyesight had been affected with deterioration in her peripheral vision, regular occurrences of bumping into people and objects on the street and her hearing and balance also affected.

It was another month before she was seen at Charing Cross Hospital who confirmed it was cancer and fast growing. Her options were to leave it and die within six to twelve months or have the tumour removed with further treatment. There was no way that Mum was going to leave it, even though that seemed to be the opinion of the doctors, at her age. Well age was just a number to Mum. At 81 she was still dancing, driving, playing lawn bowls, enjoying holidays on her own, watching live bands and generally very sociable. Why would an 81 year old who was living her life to the full, just give up?

Her surgery was completed end of May, she spent two weeks in hospital recovering before being released into my care for one month. By early July she wanted to go home. It was obvious at this stage that Mum wasn’t getting back to full recovery. She was struggling with mobility and some memory loss and her home had to be amended to cater for her changes. Carers and nurses were arranged to provide administration of medication and to watch over her as I didn’t live locally.

We had a few trips back and forth to Charing Cross for follow up appointments, all of which took its toll on mum’s overall well-being. We could see she’d had enough of hospital trips, refusing to go for any more. She was very emotional and disheartened by it all, very weak and not able to hold information. This was not the positive woman we had all come to know and love. She was advised to start stereotactic radiotherapy as soon as possible. Six sessions of up to one and a half hours, head held in place with no movement. In order to have this treatment she needed to be fitted with a mesh/cage like face mask. After trying and failing to have this made due to her claustrophobia and panic attacks, she made the decision not to have any treatment. After much discussion with her immediate family members to make sure mum understood that she would die within the year, her decision was final.

Towards the end of October we arranged for Mum to be placed into a care home local to my home. We knew this was the right thing to do for her, but we also felt so upset that for our lovely independent mum it had come to this point, something we never foresaw for her. She was literally skin and bone, had lost so much weight and had to be wheeled around the corridors as she couldn’t walk very far. She was struggling to even swallow water, a common problem with brain tumours. She spent her last few days in bed with pain medication and passed peacefully two months later, only nine months after being first diagnosed.

Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease.