A mother who put her headaches and tiredness down to ‘baby brain’ was shocked to discover she actually had an incurable brain tumour.
Claire Curtis, 30, of Plymouth, Devon, assumed her symptoms were due to the stress of becoming a mother for the second time in February 2018.
Doctors prescribed her migraine medication but when Ms Curtis started vomiting in the early hours of the morning, she knew it was something more sinister.
An MRI scan revealed Ms Curtis had a brain tumour the size of an orange, six months after she first experienced headaches.
Three days after having surgery to remove the mass, she was given the devastating news that the tumour was, in fact, cancerous and likely to return.
Ms Curtis has been told she may not live more than three years, and is now having chemotherapy to ‘buy more time’ with her children and fiancé, Tom Sutherland, 34.
Claire Curtis, 30, who put her headaches and tiredness down to ‘baby brain’, was shocked to discover she actually had an incurable cancerous brain tumour. She is pictured with her two children, Charlie (left) and Millie (right)
After having surgery to remove the tumour, Ms Curtis was given the devastating news that the tumour was in fact cancerous and likely to come back. She is now having chemotherapy which is causing her hair to fall out (pictured, and the scar from her surgery)
Ms Curtis is now having chemotherapy to ‘buy more time’
Ms Curtis said: ‘I was getting bad headaches in the front part of my head, but I put it down to being exhausted as a new mum.
‘I just felt really drained and thought it was because I’d just given birth to Charlie, so I took myself for naps when I could and tried to get on with it.
‘Doctors thought it was migraines at first and gave me co-codamol, but it didn’t seem to work, and then I started waking up in the early hours to be sick.
‘I was repeatedly going back to the doctors begging for help because I knew something was wrong, but nothing prepared me for the diagnosis of cancer.
‘Although I know my diagnosis is terminal, I’m fighting for every extra minute I can get with my kids.’
Nursery worker Ms Curtis and her partner, a crazy golf manager, welcomed daughter Millie in 2015 and their son Charlie followed last year.
Ms Curtis blamed the headaches she began having in April 2018 on being tired from having two young children.
She tried to ignore the pain, taking naps when she could, before eventually going to a doctor who prescribed co-codamol.
The pain relief didn’t work, and when Ms Curtis started vomiting in the early hours of the morning, she returned to the doctors who gave her anti-sickness tablets.
After struggling to climb the stairs in June 2018, Ms Curtis was desperate for answers and went to the opticians for an eye test.
She said: ‘I remember one morning Millie called me from her bedroom, and as I went to climb the stairs, I suddenly felt really dizzy and I couldn’t see properly.
‘I told my mum about it and she made me go to the opticians, and when they spotted swelling during the test, they referred me straight away for an emergency MRI.’
Nursery worker Ms Curtis and crazy golf manager Tom welcomed daughter Millie in 2015 and their son Charlie followed in February 2018. Ms Curtis started having headaches in April 2018
Ms Curtis was diagnosed with a Grade 3 malignant brain tumour three days after surgery to remove the tumour. Pictured, where the tumour was removed
Ms Curtis had an awake craniotomy – an operation to remove a tumour where the patient is awake throughout the procedure. She is pictured after
It took a further two weeks for Ms Curtis to actually get an ’emergency’ appointment, she said. By the time she was seen, her symptoms had somewhat subsided.
She said: ‘I made the mistake of telling them that was the case, and suddenly my MRI was delayed by another four weeks.’
In August 2018, Ms Curtis finally went for an MRI scan where chemical dye was administered via a cannula to help give the doctors a clearer image of her brain during the scan.
She was told that she would receive her results in two to three days, but after her doctor went on holiday for a fortnight, she was left without answers.
Ms Curtis said: ‘Waiting for the results was absolutely horrific and sent my stress levels through the roof.
‘Obviously I was desperate for my results, and when I heard my doctor had gone on holiday, I thought I’d ask my GP about my results in an upcoming appointment I had booked.
‘My GP told me he could tell me right there and then what the results were, but as he was reading them, he suddenly stopped and told me that he wasn’t qualified to go through my results with me and I’d have to ring the hospital.
‘He quickly grabbed his computer screen to turn it away from me, but he wasn’t fast enough and I glimpsed the words “brain tumour”.’
Ms Curtis rang the hospital the next day and the receptionist had the same reaction, telling her she would need to speak to a doctor.
Ms Curtis, pictured with Tom, said she was in the dark about her MRI results for two weeks while the doctor went on holiday. She found out about her brain tumour after seeing the results on her GP’s computer screen by accident
Ms Curtis underwent radiotherapy for six and a half weeks (pictured ringing the bell at the end of her treatment) before starting a year of chemotherapy
Ms Curtis said: ‘I sat on my kitchen floor absolutely beside myself with worry for about an hour before the doctor rang me and told me that he didn’t want to discuss the results over the phone so I needed to come in to the hospital.
‘By the time I actually got to the hospital to hear my results, I was a total nervous mess – I knew it was bad news, I just needed answers now.
‘Hearing the doctor say it was a brain tumour absolutely stunned me, and I was in too much shock to really show any emotion there and then.
‘It wasn’t until a few days later that it really sunk in and I just couldn’t stop crying at the thought of dying and leaving my kids behind.’
On October 2, Ms Curtis had an awake craniotomy – an operation where the patient is kept awake for surgeons to operate on the brain.
Doctors put Ms Curtis to sleep in order to drill open her skull and then woke her up whilst her brain was exposed to ask her questions as they removed the tumour.
Ms Curtis’s surgeon told her the tumour didn’t look cancerous, but three days after surgery, she was diagnosed with a grade three malignant brain tumour.
The higher the grade, the more serious a tumour is, with four being the highest.
Generally, high grade tumours – which are fast growing – are much more likely to come back after treatment than low grade tumours.
Around 5,000 people are diagnosed with a primary malignant brain tumour that started in the brain in the UK each year. Nearly 80,000 people will be diagnosed in the US.
Ms Curtis, pictured during radiotherapy, said: ‘It’s not a case of if the tumour will come back, it’s just a matter of when will it come back, which is the hardest thing’
Ms Curtis, pictured pregnant with Charlie, said nothing could have prepared her for a cancer diagnosis. She hopes to return to work for income
Following surgery, Ms Curtis underwent radiotherapy for six-and-a-half weeks before starting a year of chemotherapy to give her more time with her family.
Ms Curtis said: ‘It’s not a case of if the tumour will come back, it’s just a matter of when will it come back, which is the hardest thing.
‘The doctors told me that the type of tumour I have gives patients on average a three to five year prognosis.
‘Hearing that really made me feel sick, thinking I may not be here in three year’s time. But the doctors reassured me that I am young and healthy so I should survive longer.
‘Finding out my cancer was incurable was so hard, I couldn’t bear the thought of dying and leaving my children without their mum.’
Around 19 per cent of patients diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour survive for five years or more, and 14 per cent for 10 years or more.
Ms Curtis’s diagnosis has only brought her family closer, and on Christmas Day 2018, her partner proposed 10 years after the couple met.
The couple have set a date for their wedding on July 20 next year, and Ms Curtis has already bought a beautiful dress for their special day.
Ms Curtis and Mr Sutherland plan to marry in July 2020 after getting engaged at Christmas
Ms Curtis said: ‘Finding out my cancer was incurable was so hard, I couldn’t bear the thought of dying and leaving my children without their mum’
Making the most of every moment together, the family also went to Disneyland Paris in May 2019 for a holiday of treasured memories.
Ms Curtis said: ‘Some people die in the five years after doctors discover the tumour, but others can live a lot longer after diagnosis.
‘I’m young and I’ve always been healthy so hopefully I’ll have another 40-50 years, we just don’t know.
‘Doctors are monitoring my brain every three months with MRI scans so it’s just a waiting game now on when it’ll come back.
‘I just want to spend every day doing something with Tom and our children.’
Ms Curtis hopes to return to work at the nursery because the family need the money following her time off for treatment.
She said: ‘I want to treat them to really great things and go on lots of holidays, which has been hard with only one wage coming in.
‘We haven’t really thought about what to tell the children at this stage about what’s happening with me, we’re just focusing on enjoying every day together.
‘I never expected this to happen to me as I’ve always been healthy, I’m never ill and don’t ever call in sick to work – I just felt drained and put it down to having Charlie.
‘My diagnosis has showed me that every moment is precious, my kids and family mean the world to me and I just want them to be happy and to make as many memories as I can.’