A Brain Tumours Travel Tale

‘A Brain Tumours Travel Tale’

Amazon E-Book  £4.48

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Excerpts from Claire’s book 'A Brain Tumours Travel Tale' available on Amazon:

One Saturday, I went out with my friend to Brighton but I could feel a headache coming on. I gave my car keys to my friend and said she should drive us. I had done that trip a million times but when I directed her to what I thought was the easiest route from home. I realised I was in the middle of nowhere.

I had planned to have an early night, but I was just fuming. I phoned my friend and was telling them what was going on but I started talking gibberish. Words were coming out my mouth that weren’t even English.. I was really unsure what it was, but put it down to being tired and stressed as usual.  Things were becoming really scary. I didn’t know who I was.

On the Monday morning all of my bosses were going to a big meeting abroad, and would be away the whole of the week. I had arranged for my friend to come over for dinner, we watched a film called P.S I Love You.  This was a random selection. The film is about a young lady, whose husband dies from a brain tumour.  It really made me think about brain tumours and hospitals and just friendships.  I loved it, though I really didn’t know why because it was depressing. I watched it three times with different friends. I found the film really calming but I knew something was going to happen.

Tuesday morning.  I was determined to get to the bottom of the headaches, the shaking hands, bad moods and my eyes, just everything.   I was waiting for the doctor’s surgery to open at 08:30.

I drove down to the clinic and went in for my appointment.  I could feel that I was being rude, but I was not in the mood to be shrugged off like every other time. The doctor looked at the list of symptoms I gave her and she said, “I don’t know what is wrong with your vision, but it sounds like migraines. I knew they were wrong so I went to my optician and asked for a check-up.

I then went to the optician and a lady took some x-rays’ of the back of my eyes. The optician asked for a second opinion. I could see she had a problem and looked concerned. She said that she thought that it might be a cyst on both eyes as there was bleeding on the backs of them. She asked me to go straight to  hospital and said that she was going to call them to expect me. I called my friend to take me to the hospital as I couldn’t as I had dye in my eyes so I couldn’t drive.

I had a doctor look at my eyes after sitting for hours in the hospital. She said it may be a cyst and she would book me in to see herself and her boss the next morning. I thought I might lose my sight. It was very frightening. The first lady just didn’t know what to do for sure.

The next day I came in at 8 am and sat waiting for more tests. At 4:30pm I was walking out the hospital as I was told to come back the next day for results but a lady ran over and said “Hi, is it Claire Bullimore” I said “Yes”.  She said can you come back please. I went back and sat down waited for two hours.

I finally went in and saw the doctor, he then smiled at me and said, “I’m very, very sorry but we can’t help you. You have a very small percentage of recovery.”

He kept saying, “I’m so sorry,” all the time.

I was just thinking, “Yeah sure you are.”

He showed me the x-ray, “This is the tumour,” he said.

“Tumour”, I said. “Will I die?” I asked.

He showed the x-ray and I could see what he was referring to; it was huge and all over the place. He said it was so big that it could kill me any day if not removed/treated immediately.

I just sat there looking around the room trying to get my head around it.

“A tumour,” I said. He said he was surprised I had not been showing the symptoms a long time ago as it was massive and must have been growing for around ten years.

I said I had been telling my GP I had problems for years but they wouldn’t help me. He said he was going to get me a bed ASAP, that night and get me into surgery. I felt sick.

I just said “Wow, OK.”

What else can you say to that?