'There was a one per cent chance… The nurse told me, unfortunately, I’ve fallen into that one per cent'
Sarah Wilson was pregnant with her youngest child when she realised something was wrong. Tingling in the left side of her face, going deaf in one ear, double vision, no balance. Sarah put these problems to the back of her mind – her mother had just been diagnosed with a brain tumour, she needed looking after.
As her pregnancy progressed, the symptoms became worse, and the unthinkable happened. She herself was diagnosed with a brain tumour, life-threateningly pressing on her brain stem. After the birth of her child, the tumour was operated on and fully removed – Sarah wanted to forget about this traumatic period of her life, and doctors told her to ‘go away and live the rest of your life’.
But 10 years on, in June this year, Sarah, her husband David, and their two children were rocked once again. The near-impossible has happened, Sarah discovered the tumour has returned just as her mum started a third treatment for her returned tumour – and Sarah is searching for anyone in the world who might share this incredibly rare experience.
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When Sarah was pregnant with her second child, aged just 27, she was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma. The tumour is rare, and developing it so young is even more uncommon, Sarah says she was told by medics.
An acoustic neuroma is benign, meaning it is non-cancerous, but doctors wanted to remove the 3.5cm mass as soon as possible.
“I mentioned the tingling numbness to the midwives, they said it was normal in pregnancy but I Googled it and found out that the symptoms wasn’t supposed to be continuous,” Sarah, from Stalybridge, told the Manchester Evening News.
“I was sent for a scan and a tumour was