Mum, 42, told symptoms 'were from menopause' gets terrifying diagnosis after Specsavers trip

A mum who spent 10 years battling painful migraines, which medics believed were a symptom of menopause, discovered she had a 7.5 inch brain tumour after attending her first routine eye test in a decade.

Sarah Kelly, 42, a social worker, went to A&E in March 2023 after the headaches and migraines she had been battling for years took a turn for the worse, but when medics believed they were caused by hormonal changes, the mum-of-two made an appointment at Specsavers to get her eyes tested.

Once there, her optician noticed that her optic discs were swollen and Sarah was referred to hospital. The next day, she underwent tests including a head CT scan and, as a result, was diagnosed with a grade one meningioma brain tumour.

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It is believed that the slow-growing, benign tumour had been lurking for years and causing her migraines as it put pressure on her brain. At the end of March, Sarah underwent brain surgery to remove the mass and is now recovering – a process which she says has been “slow”.

Sarah, who lives in Northumberland with her partner Stuart Long, 57, a postman, and her two children from a previous relationship, Jake, 22, and Ryan, 16, told PA Real Life: “I had accepted that the symptoms I was experiencing were hormonal and part of the menopause, but looking back now, I had some very clear red flags but I just didn’t know what they were.

“If I had kept up with my routine eye tests, this would have been picked up a lot sooner, but I hadn’t been to an eye test in 10 years when I finally went in March last year. Now I want to encourage others to get their eyes tested.

"If my tumour hadn’t been picked up then I could have suffered