Elin's brain tumour seizure story

Elin’s brain tumour seizure symptoms

My daughter, Cadi-Elin (I call her Elin), turned six last October. She was born into this world on 31 October 2008 – a healthy 7lb 14oz. In early 2011, when Elin was two, there was a sudden change in her behaviour. My happy and contented child quickly became difficult, less engaging and less sociable. As time went on she became more and more agitated. Some may even have described her as ‘possessed’.

February 2012 started a long, difficult journey for all who cared for and loved Elin. For example, she would normally be walking then stop still, as if in a daydream. I thought nothing of this at first but it happened increasingly over the next month or two and Elin’s face would go red and she’d start to dribble.

I researched seizures online and it seemed that Elin may be a victim of some form of epilepsy. The next year and a half was extremely difficult. The brain tumour seizures very quickly progressed from mild, infrequent, ‘absence’ seizures to full-on, violent ‘grand mal’ seizures. These would last a couple of minutes each.

A year and a half with no diagnosis

Elin was having up to 15 brain seizures a night – and these are only the ones I could hear from my bedroom – she was actually having more!

The next year and a half were spent either in the doctor’s surgery, calling ambulances or taking her to casualty… just to be listened to.

I showed two videos of Elin having seizures to a duty doctor one night after Elin was, again, admitted to the children’s ward, but he put them down to night terrors! This was not the case – Elin was having seizures throughout the day.

At last, epilepsy is confirmed

On another occasion when Elin was admitted to the children’s ward, the doctor who was on duty immediately took an interest in Elin’s case – he dealt a lot with epilepsy patients. Within no time Elin was transferred to his care and was diagnosed with epilepsy. She was put on anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs).

The AEDs, however, had little impact on reducing the frequency and severity of the brain tumour seizures. It got so bad that Elin was not allowed to attend school in case she injured herself during fits.

Stage 2 oligodendroglioma

Elin was operated on to remove the tumour on the 25 March 2014. Elin was a trooper throughout!

Results of the biopsy of the removed mass showed that Elin had a Stage 2 oligodendroglioma, a type of brain tumour.

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