Woman diagnosed with brain tumour after thinking symptom was just her menopause
A single mother was left blindsided after being told that a symptom she believed was linked to the menopause was actually an indicator of an inoperable brain tumour.
Now, three years on from the realisation, and 52-year-old April Tate is attempting to raise awareness of the unnerving side effect, so others can receive both their diagnoses and treatment quicker.
Speaking to press recently, the mother-of-one revealed she first clocked that something was wrong some years earlier in 2018, whilst she was working as a childminder.
Despite having worked in young education for some time, she suddenly began struggling to remember basic requirements for the position, including the names of some of the children she'd been hired to care for.
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After researching the most common side effects of the menopause, however, she put her sudden forgetfulness down to 'brain fog'.
For those in need of a reminder, the menopause marks the period of a woman's life when her menstrual cycle slowly comes to an end. The phase is often associated with some frustrating symptoms, like hot flushes, night sweats, issues with sleep, a lack of libido, and vaginal dryness.
Memory loss, or 'brain fog', is another common side effect of the menopause, caused by the decline in the amount of oestrogen the body is producing, and this chemical is in control of how much fuel your neurons (special brain cells) get. So, the lower the amount of oestrogen, the less your brain cells are powered to remember things.
During a conversation with her GP, April brought up her concerns, after which she was invited to come down to the surgery.
The Fife, Burntisland local was immediately referred to Victoria Hospital for a scan of her brain.
Days later, she was dealt the news.
Not only did she have a mass on her brain, but doctors could tell straight away that surgery upon the tumour was no longer an option, due to its positioning.
"My first thought was that I was going to die," she recently confessed. "Being self-employed meant taking time off for treatment brought financial pressure too, which just added to the stress."
Technically, April had been diagnosed with a posterior falcine meningioma, a low-grade tumour which is located deep in the centre of her brain.
Because of this factor, the mum - who has one teenage daughter, Abby - was placed on watch and wait, and instructed to go for brain scans every six months.
"When the surgeon explained the tumour was located in a really difficult part of my brain and he’d only attempted surgery in that area once before, it was a difficult truth to accept," she admitted.
"It was terrifying to live with the unknown of whether it would grow or not. Over time, I began to adjust. The tumour was slow-growing, and for a while, it didn’t change much.”
By the end of 2022, however, the tumour had increased in size, leaving doctors with no option other than stereotactic radiotherapy, which seeks to minimise the damage the mass inflicts onto surrounding cells.
"The radiotherapy itself was fairly quick each day, but it was exhausting," April recalled. "The team had to make a custom mask to keep my head completely still, which felt claustrophobic and intense.
"I just closed my eyes, listened to music and tried to stay calm. The hardest part came afterwards, with having to wait to find out if it had worked."
Since then, the tumour has thankfully shrunk and April has returned to work.
She's also done everything she can to implement a healthy new routine, including taking up running, and completing the '88 Squats a Day' challenge in support of Brain Tumour Research, having set up her own fundraiser.
"People hear the words 'benign' or 'low-grade' and assume it’s nothing serious, but I still live with this every day," April explained. "There’s something in my brain that shouldn’t be there, and it could change at any time.
"I even worried about how it might affect new relationships and not wanting to burden someone else with what I was going through. But we still deserve to live fully, and to love and be loved.
"What shocks me most is how little funding goes into researching brain tumours. That has to change."
Rhianna Benson