Swimming 5km a week for my mum I lost to devastating brain tumour
The GP started off with the word ‘tumour’ and then he said ‘aggressive’ and then ‘brain cancer’. My mum sat and said nothing. I will never forget that moment, with my parents, in October 2024. Less than two weeks later my mum was dead.
This month I have set myself a challenge of swimming 5km each week of April to raise both funds for The Brain Tumour Charity and awareness of brain tumours.
Brain tumours are graded one to four, with four being the most aggressive and high grade.
My mum, Frances, had Glioblastoma; the worst kind of brain tumour.
The outlook for anyone diagnosed with Glioblastoma is simply devastating. Just over 3000 people in the UK are diagnosed with this each year. It is extremely aggressive, grows quickly and is extremely challenging to treat.
The prognosis is awful. Unlike some other cancers, lifestyle choices are not thought to play a part. We were told in the days following that with some palliative radiotherapy my mum may survive up to 12 months but even that was unlikely. However, the speed at which everything went wrong we were not prepared for.
Until my mum’s diagnosis I was somewhat ignorant of what Glioblastoma is and knew little about brain tumours.
Attracting just 1% of the national spend on cancer research annually yet killing more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, tells me something needs to change. Patients need hope. They need vital funding into research and support. There needs to be far more public awareness.
I have been encouraged by the persistent work of Dr Scott Arthur MP to have his Rare Cancers Bill passed into law. This Act should now ensure there is a UK wide review of how new treatments for rare cancers are assessed and funded. It should also pave the way for eligible patients to receive clinical trials.
All of this is of course too late of course for my mum.
Had we had better awareness of signs and symptoms we could have got her to a doctor earlier, but the eventual outcome was unlikely to have been any different. In the two months or so before that visit she had become quieter and withdrawn.
She was not speaking very much and had developed rather erratic eating patterns and become forgetful and sometimes confused. It was difficult though to pinpoint one thing that was a trigger other than something was just ‘off’.
The Brain Tumour Charity funds research to develop new treatments and improve the quality of life of all those affected by a brain tumour. I am doing this sponsored swim to both raise funds and highlight awareness.
Over the next few weeks if you want to find me, I will probably be in the swimming pool, with each lap thinking of my mum, who first took me to learn to swim when I was five, and since then I have just kept swimming.
This is for her and for all those affected by a brain tumour. Please do donate if you can at www.justgiving.com/page/kathleen-leslie-2
> Information on brain tumours can be found atwww.thebraintumourcharity.org