Mum's 'luck' after food poisoning led to deadly diagnosis

A mum says she was 'lucky' after coming down with food poisoning led to a deadly brain tumour diagnosis.

Theresa Hardwick, 58, was on holiday in Saint Brieuc, Brittany, France, when she began to vomit and 'talk nonsense'. She was rushed to hospital, where doctors discovered a brain tumour the size of an egg.

Medics performed a seven-hour-long surgery in order to remove the tumour - which could have been growing for 30 years - after Theresa suffered a 90-minute seizure.

READ MORE: The idyllic Greater Manchester street nobody wants to leave - with one negative

They were able to remove it all and she has been stable ever since.

Mum-of-two Theresa, from Petersfield, Hampshire, said if she had never fallen ill, her tumour may not have been discovered.

“The doctors think my brain went into spasm from the effects of the food poisoning," she added.

Theresa had been suffering from food poisoning caused by mussels before she was admitted to hospital and had been violently vomiting for 24 hours.

But on July 4, 2019, her husband, Paul, 56, a retiree, noticed she wasn’t making any sense while talking and quickly became unresponsive.

He called an ambulance, which rushed her to a hospital in Brittany for further examinations - before she was transferred to St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester, back in the UK. But she had a 90-minute seizure at Chichester, which revealed a low-grade meningeal tumour - which is non-cancerous.

Theresa said: “There were no warning signs before I was sick with food poisoning. I had been vomiting for hours non-stop and was extremely dehydrated when I had the seizure.”

Doctors removed the tumour in surgery on August 21, 2019, which lasted for seven hours and took place at Spire Hospital, Southampton. Now,