In April 2014, completely out of the blue and at age 35 I was diagnosed with a Brain Tumour (a type 4 Glioblastoma (GBM)) in the speech part of my brain which was the size of a golf ball.  I am ashamed to say that I had buried my head in the sand about the dreaded word 'Cancer' and so neither myself nor my family had much idea about what brain tumours were, what the treatment was, etc.  Very quickly we had to learn and 9 days after the diagnosis I underwent surgery to remove as much of the tumour as they could.

It was explained to me that I could either have the operation in the traditional way i.e. under general anaesthetic or via an awake craniotomy (this is where you are awake for around 75% of the operation as due to it's location it could have affected many functions controlled by that part of my brain).  When I was given the awake option I knew straight away that it was what I wanted to do as I was determined to give myself the best outcome and still wanted to be able to read our kids bedtime stories, do their homework, etc, which would have deteriorated plus worse had things been left as they were.  The surgery was as successful as it could have been and I have received follow up treatment since then.  Unfortunately when you are diagnosed with a brain tumour it is something that will never go away, despite surgery (unlike cancer in some other parts of the body).  My advice is to stay as positive and healthy as possible.  My family and friends have been unbelievably supportive and I am forever grateful for that.  It was them who suggested we start the fund and I'd like to thank those who have already donated and also those that do in the future.  We are aware that there are so many other cancer charities out there and congratulations to you if you already support those.  We recognised very quickly that brain tumours don't receive as much funding as many other types of cancer (less than 2% of cancer research funding in the UK is spent on brain tumours – we and the charity are committed to increasing this).  So anything that you can give, no matter how large or small in value is so well appreciated.

The aim of The Brain Tumour Charity is to improve understanding, diagnosis and treatment of brain tumours.

I wish I could have the knowledge to create a permanent fix that gives a cure to this illness but I don't so the next best thing is to raise the funds needed to do just that through The Brain Tumour Charity.  A link to their pages explaining more is attached below.

Many thanks

Love from Suze and my amazing family

Xx