You always think it will never happen to you, until it does.

Unfortunately, in September 2023, I was informed by my ENT consultant that they had found ‘an area of swelling’ on a recent MRI of my brain. Something that I now know and understand as a brain tumour. I was urgently referred to King’s College Hospital for specialist input, where I had various appointments with various healthcare professionals, and let me tell you, being on the patient side of healthcare is not a fun place to be. I waited 3 months for a repeat MRI so that my neuro-oncology team could see if my little friend (I named him Jeff - although you could argue that he probably named himself after making himself comfortable in my head) had grown significantly. Luckily, Jeff hadn’t grown, but my team still wanted to get rid of him and so I geared up for surgery. On Wednesday 7th February, exactly 5 months after finding out about my little friend, I had an awake craniotomy (brain surgery while I was awake) and that is something that I never ever want to experience again. The pain was like something I didn’t know was even possible.

I spent a few days in hospital being well looked after by my lovely NHS colleagues, before being discharged home to the care of my amazing family (who I will always be grateful for and will never be able to repay them for their support and love throughout all of this).

Anyway, this brings us to now. I’m slowly getting there with my recovery, although my vision and left hand have taken a bit of a hit following surgery, but what the next few months will look like is something that I still have so much uncertainty around. Unfortunately my surgeons couldn’t remove all of my brain tumour because having them operate on this part of my brain started compromising my vision and use of my left hand, so I’m back in limbo while I recover for a short period before discussing the potential of chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

I will be participating in a fundraising event held by The Brain Tumour Charity on 23rd March where Mike and I will be walking 10km to raise funds for this amazing charity.

Did you know that brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40? And while over £700m is spent on cancer research in the UK every year, less than 3% is spent on brain tumour research.

I never thought I’d be diagnosed with a brain tumour and that being on the opposite side of healthcare would be something I have to endure for the rest of my life, but I’m fortunate that it was found and that I am in a position, as a brain tumour survivor, and a healthcare professional, to spread awareness and help raise funds for those that aren’t as lucky as me.

Please help me help others to work towards finding a cure for those living with brain tumours.