LIVING FROM SCAN TO SCAN

With brain tumours killing more children and adults under 40 than any other cancer, we look into what life is like living with a diagnosis

- JOHANNA BELL

Untreatable, incurable, terminal - they're words that nobody wants to hear, yet they are a reality for so many people living with brain tumours. It's a disease that kills more children and adults under 40 than any other cancer according to charity Brain Tumour Research - yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to the disease.

When Antiques Roadshow expert Theo Burrell was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer aged 35, she spoke of her shock that there was so little research into the illness and joined a campaign urging the government to guarantee £110 million of funding for brain tumour research.

This month is Brain Tumour Awareness Month, and as Brain Tumour Research prepares for its biggest annual fundraising event - Wear A Hat Day on 28 March - Woman's Own speaks to a mum who is living with a brain tumour.

‘Giving up isn’t an option’ Kylie Weatherby, 35, lives in Thetford, Norfolk, with her two-year-old twins Luca and Malena.

I was entering the final stages of my pregnancy when I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It was May 2021 and I was living in America, working as a lead hostess at a restaurant.

EXCITED TO BE A MUM

I’d moved to the States for love in 2012, and having stayed and built a life for myself, my pregnancy had come as a shock – especially when I’d discovered I was having twins. But I was excited about becoming a mum. Then, at 35 weeks, I suffered a seizure.