Woman with undiagnosed brain tumour had to visit doctors nine times to get scan

A woman with an undiagnosed brain tumour who was told ‘we don’t give out brain scans to 24-year-olds willy nilly’ is now campaigning for change.

Claudia Laird, from Burnley, went to see a medical professional on nine occasions as she tried to get to the bottom of why she felt so unwell. One week later, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. 

Claudia told ITV Granada Reports: “I think the initial reaction was trusting of the GP. I was in shock after, because I found out I definitely needed that brain scan.

“It was all quite quick – they weren’t sure what was on the brain at first. It was all up in the air.

“I can’t believe I went through that. We were just waiting for the doctors to tell us the outcome. It was challenging, but more so looking back on it now. At the time, you don’t know the outcome.”

Claudia was experiencing symptoms of confusion, hallucinations and fatigue. But doctors put it down to what they thought to be gastroenteritis. After discovering the tumour, Claudia had to then undergo an eight-hour operation. 

Doctors told her if she had not had the surgery within a few hours or days then it could have been a different story. She said: “I was asleep all the time. My friends would call me lazy. I thought it was because I was working long hours.

“I walked into a window thinking it was a door. I spent a night in bed with my mum and dad because I was hallucinating.”

Claudia is now training to be a paediatrician, to give people the same level of care. After the difficulty she had in getting diagnosed, Claudia has decided she does not want the same mistakes to happen to someone else.

Claudia said: “We need everybody to understand the difficulty of getting that diagnosis. It took me over nine times to get that diagnosis. I went to opticians, GP and A&E just to push to say ‘I really don’t think something is right here’.

“I want to see some changes, some research, funding into brain tumours. 1% of cancer research goes into brain tumours.”

The NHS lists the symptoms of a brain tumour as:

• headaches.
• seizures (fits)
• persistently feeling sick (nausea), being sick (vomiting) and drowsiness.
• mental or behavioural changes, such as memory problems or changes in personality.
• progressive weakness or paralysis on one side of the body.
• vision or speech problems.