Sarah's Journey

At the beginning of the summer holidays, our son was getting ready to go to YMCA for several days with school as an end of term treat. He was staying at his Nanas that night; I would be sat in hospital with my wife after a run of the mill eye test at Vera Wiltons in Dalton picked up an anomaly.

After several hours, in hospital waiting for the results of the CAT scan, we had started to relax thinking there cannot be any bad news. We could not have been much wronger in our assessment. The Doctor came in and informed us she had the worst news possible. Sarah had been diagnosed with a very large meningioma, which type we didn't know yet.

She was admitted immediately and sedated..... that morning I had to see our 12 year old son off on his holiday without telling him too much about what was going on, by the time he came back Sarah had been moved to Preston Royal infirmary's oncology unit.

Whilst there we found out from Professor Gurusinghe and his team that Sarah had a very large rare Falco-tentorial Meningioma. The prognosis wasn't great in the respect of side effects post operation to remove what they could of the tumour. We decided to call the tumour Amadeus, a tenuous link to 80's pop star 'Falco'.

Professor Gurusinghe and his team could not have been more professional and helpful, I had one of the Profs main Consultants ringing me at home regularly to keep me up to date on what was happening on the days I could not travel down to see her.

They spent 14 hours inside her head, and managed to remove @ 55% of the tumour.

The CCU at Preston were fantastic, as were all the stressed and over-worked nurses, they had my sympathies trying to look after a strong willed woman like Sarah! They did their best. A week later I was picking her up to bring her home, very weak, she had also developed Alexia, could not see properly out of either eye, tired and permanently, profusely sweating. I should add here that my wife is a Chartered Accountant with her own business, so we were in a very precarious situation.

Luckily we have a static caravan so instead of going home we decided it best for her to recuperate at the static with no stairs and everything in close proximity. The next 5-6 weeks were a slow and steady progress on an upward trend, with a few tears her and there, due to hair loss, sight loss, the realisation that Sarah would not drive again. But positivity ruled the day, her Alexia righted itself, her left eye improved greatly, the sweats and trembling stopped.

She is now back in work, all be it on an Electric bike rather than driving, and getting more and more positive every day.

Last week we saw Professor Gurusinghe for an update, and he was extremely pleased with her progress, so much so that they have decided on a Watch and Wait policy at least until February to decide what to do with the remaining tumour.

In this time we also came to the realisation that after I had left the Armed Forces the Prof was the very same guy that had operated on my neck removing a prolapsed disc and putting in a metal plate 3 years earlier! So we have even more reason to be thankful to this marvellous surgeon and his team. He has also operated on our Son's rugby coach!

We found out that he is a trustee for The Sydney Driscoll Neuro-Science Foundation, Charity no. 1129387, Company no. 6606603,

'Aims & activities: The Charity's objects are to heal and relieve sick disabled and aged persons from the disabilities and infirmaties with which they are afflicted in relation to neurosurgical and neurological medicine'

We would like to repay them in some small manner for what they did for us. And hope that you would all help us get some desperately needed help for this very worthwhile cause. To help them help others with this horrible, indiscriminate disease, really they shouldn't need help. it should be Government assisted or Lottery funded, however it isn't so they need our help to continue helping those less fortunate.

At some point we intend to run a charity night as well, but thought this would also be a fantastic way to raise funds with every single penny being given to the Charity.