The Background

On July 16th I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It came as a bit of a shock to me, because I had always believed that I was in perfect health. In fact just a few months ago, I underwent a full medical and was told that I was in excellent condition. Just goes to show that you can never know.

Since I found out and started telling the people around me, I have simply been overwhelmed with the amount of support, love and concern that I've been shown. It's actually been an incredibly moving experience to see how much people care and has made me realise the importance those around me.

That's why I started this blog. I wanted an easy way to keep those who care, updated on my progress. I have been asked a lot of questions about the diagnosis, the treatment, what's going to happen afterwards etc. and I thought this would be the great way to keep people as up to date as I am on how everything is going.

And just for the record, I am VERY confident that I will be absolutely fine. When I was first told, it came as a complete shock. However, the more I talk to specialists and the more I learn about this whole thing, the better I feel about it. And if I feel positive about it, so should you ;-)

Much love,

Tak

How I Discovered It

On June 23rd, we had a company away-day, which included an afternoon of games and activities. One of the games was sumo wrestling in giant sumo suits and of course I had to have a go. I went up against Adam (my boss) who proceeded to floor me. I hit my head on the ground and was dazed for a few seconds, but then got up and thought nothing more of it.

"Ouch"

However, that night and every night after it, whenever I lay my head down on my pillow, the entire room would start spinning and I would have to take a few seconds to recover. It was as if I had been hit all over again, except I hadn't. More than a week later, I went to see my doctor who sent me off for an MRI scan. When the scan came back, it showed a big lump in my brain.

I have to say, I am EXTREMELY lucky that things played out the way they did. If I hadn't had the knock, I would never have gone to the doctor and would never have had the scan done. I wouldn't even have known that anything was wrong until the tumour had begun to do some real damage to my brain, in who-knows how many years time.

As it happens, other than the momentary spinning when I lie down, I feel absolutely fine. I am still active, still going to the gym and still feel good. Although I don't think I'll be doing kickboxing any time soon though.

As I write, it's just occurred to me that the sumo wrestling thing was actually my suggestion in the first place. Proof of serendipity if I've ever seen it.