My name is Eamonn, I am 31 years old, I am Irish and currently live in London.

 

In February 2009, in an Irish hopsital, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball sitting on my cerebral artery directly behind my right eye.

 

 

In the summer of 2008, I was living in a seaside town north of Dublin city, I was doing the usual things a 30 year old lad does, working hard, playing sports, socialising with friends and family in the local pubs and clubs and walking my dog on the beach.

 

I started to notice a problem with my heart. Every few days it would feel like it was speeding up and I would feel a rush in my head. It might last up to thirty seconds. My immediate thoughts were:

 

 

I started to pare down all my activities, rested a bit more and went to bed earlier but there was no change, like clockwork my heart was insisting it wanted me to pay attention. At the end of the summer I was in London for a weekend and a surgeon friend of mine was out socialising with us so I put it to her about my heart speed and head rushes, she said it could be a heart murmur or a random overpulse in your brain, ok, so that’s my layman’s terms, but her positive feedback was that these things can be controlled by medication and I should attend a doctor when I get back to Ireland.

 

 

I attended my local doctor for convenience sake. A young doctor, full of the joys of Spring! I was feeling positive already and he hadn’t even heard my symptoms. Out I started, explaining as best I could that my heart was speeding up, I was getting a head rush and the result was a feeling of disconnection from the world around me. He looked back with a puzzled look on his face and said:

 

 

I reduced any stress in my life, trusting his knowledge and taking some happiness from the fact other people go through the same as what I’m going through.

 

By Christmas 2008 I was getting up to ten episodes a day, alarms were starting to go off but I didn’t want to go back to a doctor again to hear “I have no idea what you’re on about mate!”.

 

 

In late-January 2009, I was managing my episodes in the hope they would go away. I had given up football, reformed my diet and cut down on my nights out. My daughter spent the weekend with me and we brought the dog for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful crisp day and we were the only two people on the beach. We had brought a frisbee and my daughter threw it to me but it took off in the wind and I turned my back to her and ran after it. As I came to it, a different kind of episode arrived, I felt my heart speed up as usual, but this time my breathing became difficult, a rusty taste came in my mouth, a rusty smell in my nose and I felt like I was going to pass out. I didn’t want to turn to my daughter because I didn’t want her to witness it. I braced myself for collapsing when all of a sudden five people appeared in front of me, five faces from my past, all in front of me and all talking at once. It all lasted a few minutes and then everything returned to normal but I was totally drained and had to return home and lie down. The next day the same thing happened with five different people appearing.

 

What was my biggest worry of all? That I would end up in a mental hospital, full of doctors saying “we don’t know what’s wrong with him, maybe it’s stress?”

 

 

The next day I rang my mother and asked her to arrange a meeting with the family doctor, he knew the family history, he would listen, I placed all my eggs in his basket.

 

Monday evening, he sat back and listened to all I had to say, as soon as he heard rusty taste and smell he carried out a few minor tests and said all was fine but that an brain MRI would have to be performed asap. The next day I had an MRI, the day after that I was requested to return for a contrast MRI. On Thursday evening I was out shopping and my mobile phone rang, it was the doctor’s number, he told me they had found a cyst in my frontal lobe and that I was being referred onto a neurosurgeon post-haste. I remember saying “That’s great news!”, because I wasn’t going mad, there was a reason for my visitors! My heart was not giving up!

 

 

The neurosurgeon rang me the next day and said “No driving for a year, no working for two weeks, no swimming ...” and on and on. He said “I’m putting you on medication for two weeks to control your seizures until you see me and we can discuss our options then”.

 

Medication brought all kinds of side-effects including paranoia, blurry vision, anxiety, fatigue ...

 

But my seizures were stopping and the side-effects would wear off.

 

Attending the consult two weeks later had an overwhelming sense of doom about it, my family were with me, my family were amazing. The diagnosis was that I had a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball sitting on my cerebral artery which was too complex to operate on due to it’s location and because it would risk death, paralysis, speech impediment ... when you start hearing words like that you start to feel your collar tighten and your body slowly go into panic mode. I was advised that maybe an operation in ten years would be less risky and that I would have a good ten years to enjoy myself ... what kind of a life would that be?

 

So, life after that slows down. You feel like you have stepped off the conveyor belt of life and there isn’t room to get back on. And if you do get back on, you’re just going to be shoved off it again in ten years. Family and friends rally, but the body is panicking and you just have to smile so people don’t worry.

 

 

Second opinion time, my sister managed to get me a meeting with one of the top neurosurgeons in the UK (and the world). I flew over to London at Easter expecting the same diagnosis, I told family and friends not to be expecting anything different.

 

The consult turned everything on it’s head, after more scans were done I was told the tumour had to come out within three months or I would risk damage to the brain.

 

 

I moved to London in May 2009 and in July had brain surgery. The support from family, friends, work, friends of family ... you just can’t put it into words how much I received. The morning of the surgery, I walked into the operating theatre with my brother alongside me, a large team of people waiting to chop me open and I had a smile on my face. It was like I was being carried on a wave of support and I knew everything was going to be ok.

 

It took a couple of months to recover, constant bed rest, little or no TV, away from noise. But I was back working after two months and my scar had just about healed up.

 

It’s life Jim, but not as we know it ...

 

No, I’m not a Trekkie fan.

 

It’s nearly December now, life has been turned on it’s head.

 

Last year was “Oh, it’s cold outside, I might stay in bed for all of Saturday!”.

 

Today, as soon as my eyes open, I throw open the window, take a deep gulp of air and think “Who cares what day it is, whether I have to work or not work ... Today is a great day!”.

 

I wouldn’t want anyone to have the health issues I have had, but at the same time I wish everyone could experience what I have gone through!

 

It opens your eyes to what it important in life. Don’t have wasted effort in life. Concentrate on the positives, if there are no positives then create positives!

 

In 2008, if someone said to me “Life is precious” I would have retorted with “yeah, whatever!”.