Meningioma. Day one - diagnosis

As my fifth anniversary dawns I pause to reflect on the day the words Brain Tumour stormed into my life.

On November 17^th I sat in my grey clio in Newport Wales after a community infection control strategy meeting. As I whizzed along the M4 I belted out songs with Eva Cassidy;

 I see trees of green…red roses too…

I see em bloom for me and for you….

and I think to myself…what a wonderful world…

I breezed past Mr H as he walked through the door; bye off for a run hung in the air... we normally ran together.

In bed Mr H asked me silly questions to settle my agitated mind; if you could only travel to one place in the world which one of these would  you choose; A) Africa B) America C) Italy…

but I want to go to South America, No you have to choose from these three oh mmmmm already travelled across America when I got my scholarship, seen a bit of Italy, it would have to be Africa….zzzzzzz

I cried out as a painful spasm in my lower legs woke me. My arms flapped as my head had an earthquake. My brain shook as it bounced off the sides of my skull.  I thanked God as a dark empty cloud embraced me. Silence.

Mr H’s face came into view. He was shouting wake up wake up. It was quarter past one in the morning. November 18th. On the way to hospital the cloud tried again and again to spread its darkness. I lay on a trolley as needles were poked in my arms, I trundled into a CT scanner for the first time; then a second…for more pictures….

We have seen something on your brain scans, the lady doctor told us. Mr H and I shared a shrug and raised eyebrows; best not to speak.

On the ward the neurosurgery registrar handed me a scan picture with a round thing sitting in the right side of my brain. 

He said This will have caused your seizure, it could be a primary or a secondary tumour. At the word secondary I clasped my hand to my breast thinking oh no I've got breast cancer...

He continued...In all probability it is a primary tumour but we won’t know for sure until we have removed it.

I asked him for the cold facts so he looked me in the eye and said If it is malignant you will have about 18 months to live, if benign you will live, but it will be a different life….We would like to operate today if we can, if not definitely tomorrow.


Mr H and I crumbled in each others arms behind the curtains. He drew the short straw as he went off to break the news to others...

The Neurosurgery Consultant I saw later told me that in his clinical opinion the tumour was likely to be a meningioma, a slow growing tumour of the lining covering the brain which is usually benign.

Never heard of it I said. How much hair will I loose?

Grand Canyon on my travels in 1993

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Brain-scan, Brain-Tumour, Meningioma

Impressions of my Brain Tumour sixth year scan...

The results of my sixth annual brain scan got lost in the midst of my recent breast cancer fuss...There were no signs of any growth...all was the same as last year. 

But I didn't whoop or go out for a celebratory meal, I pondered on how a single moment changed my life:

The bulb in my head had bulked out over a period of ten to fifteen years.

My first symptom to trigger the alarm was the Tonic Clonic (Grand Mal) Seizure which woke me from my sleep at 01.00hrs on November 18th 2008.

The seed of hindsight revealed the blighter had been trying to warn me of its presence for a while:

1. Regular headaches took a couple of days to 'crack' Paracetamol then Brufen every 4-6 hours eventually shook them off. Back at home after the surgery I discovered I ran a paracetamol store; half used packets hid in every handbag, in drawers by the bed, in the car,  in my office drawers, drawers in the kitchen..EVERYWHERE...I blamed the headaches on driving and female things!
2. Mr H would gently pull my hair away from my scalp as I sat on a stool in front of him in the evenings when my headaches persisted, the spot I asked him to pull was where the tumour was growing!....blamed that on stress of the job.
3. I kept tripping up in 2008 when I walked from the train station to the office in my new summer scandals... blamed it on the new scandals obviously!
4. Nausea welcomed each day...blamed that on hormone imbalance.

The raised intra-cranial (inside my skull) pressure as a result of my slow growing tumour caused these symptoms which I managed and generally ignored.




My tumour had spread like icing on a cake across my head onto the left side of my brain

R - L    Tumour on the right

The bulk of my tumour was located in the The right frontal lobe of the brain 

I was 'lucky', I presented at my local hospital which is a regional neurosurgery unit, the tumour was discovered on a CT scan in the middle of the night and I underwent life saving surgery the following day. 

An anxious weeks wait to find that my tumour was a Grade One Meningioma was filled with hope that I would be able to walk again.

Facts

• Currently there is NO cure for my brain tumour which could not be completely removed by surgery. Radiotherapy and possibly more surgery may follow if it starts to grow again
• Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and young adults under 40
• Over 8,500 people each year in the UK are diagnosed with a primary (starts in the brain) brain tumour.  
• That's 25 people diagnosed a day but the actual figure could be much higher..
• Ten children or teenagers a week are diagnosed with a Brain Tumour
• The Head Start: Be Brain Tumour Aware Campaign is raising the profile of this condition in children and young adults with the aim of reducing delays in diagnosis and treatment
• 3500 people loose their life to a brain tumour each year
• Less than 2% of cancer funding is spent on Brain Tumour research

The Brain Tumour Charity is the largest dedicated funder of brain tumour research in the UK.  They fund at least £1 million of research every year; all through donations. 

Please support research into brain tumours. I would like to know why my meningioma tumour grew and how future growth can be stopped.