Grace’s Story
“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” Maya Angelou
I have always told people that my brain tumour is only as big a part of my life as its physical size compared with the rest of me. I refuse to let something so small take over and control my life. It has taken me a while to reach this accepting place, where I can confidently say that I am grateful for my brain tumour and some of the complications it has caused me. A part of my tumour is still present in my brain and I will always have the threat of it beginning to grow. I will be on medication for life and have continuous scans and hospital appointments all the way through my adult life. I was given two paths on that day and I chose to not let it take charge. I am lucky to be alive and now it’s my turn to start paying forward.
When I was 9 years old I was diagnosed with a rare childhood brain tumour: A Meningioma.
Let’s take it back a few years. September, 2018. I walked into the SUCCESS annual conference on my own, thinking that maybe I would learn a bit about having a brain tumour and listen to some of the educators discuss ways of living with a brain tumour. But actually what I did learn was far more profound. Walking through those doors I felt a sense of belonging I did not know possible. My biggest fear up until this point was loneliness. Having no one that could fully understand what I had experienced so early on in my childhood made the coping process extremely difficult for me. The conference was full of young people like me..childhood brain tumour survivors and having previously naively thought I was the only child having gone through something like this I walked through those doors and realised I wasn’t. I met people on that day that are now friends for life and so I have had such great pleasure in spending the last three years at every conference meeting other 2018 versions of myself that are welcomed into our brain injured family, however dysfunctional we might be.
So with it now being my turn to pay it forward, I decided that with my experiences combined with the interest I had about my tumour, it was only right that I became a paediatric nurse. I am currently 2 years into my degree and have already encountered families of children with brain tumours and other childhood illnesses that I can offer support to. I look forward to many more encounters like these throughout my career and hope that I can be a helping hand to many families. Without SUCCESS, I would not be the optimistic positive young person I am today as I have since normalised having a brain tumour and SUCCESS helped show me that the positives of what I have been through far outweigh the negatives.
As I said at the beginning “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” And this is what I share with my patients on a daily basis.
