A woman who believed her seizures were just due to stress discovered that she had a ‘tennis-ball’ like tumour squashing her brain. Helen Green, 58, started experiencing seizures and assumed they were down to the stress of the pandemic. The mother-of-two had a phone consultation with a doctor, who then referred her for an MRI scan. Just hours after the scan, she was told she had a six centimetre tumour growing on the left temporal lobe of her brain. Doctors who left baffled as to how Helen was managing to still walk and talk due to the size and placement of her tumour. Usually, patients would be unable to speak and would struggle with long-term memory problems. After her diagnosis, Helen underwent a four-hour operation at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham during which surgeons successfully removed the tumour and she spent five days in recovery. She has now recovered from the surgery, but is still required to have check ups to ensure the tumour hasn’t grown back. Despite her successful operation and subsequent recovery, she still often struggles with her speech. Helen, who is a community champion at ASDA, from Walsall, West Midlands, said: “I got taken to A&E - where I got sat down and given cognitive tests. “I was confused as to why I was being checked over and over again. At the time I didn’t know, but they knew about the tumour. I went into hospital at 8.30am and at 3.30pm I was told I had a brain tumour. I thought it was a death sentence. "I was with my mum, Sheila, 83, we both broke down and then pulled ourselves together and called around the family. I am grateful to be alive and grateful to wake up in the morning.”
