Lisa Connell
In 2007, aged 27, Lisa Connell was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and decided to dedicate her life to raising funds for brain tumour charities. She founded the unique celebrity dating site, Rent a Date for Charity, to help her achieve this goal. Her target is £1million.
Lisa feels that the story of her own diagnosis may help to save the lives of others, so we are working hard to spread the message to as many people as possible.
Lisa's story
I first experienced difficulty equalising and hearing in my left ear in about 1997 and I reported this to my doctor at the time. Over the years I've changed doctors due to relocating and continued to pursue the fact that my hearing and pressure in my left ear was causing me increasing trouble. Each time I was sent away with yet another dose of antibiotics.
I have travelled a lot throughout my life and have always had to carry decongestant medications like Albas Oil and Vicks inhalers to help reduce pressure build up in my ear. The pain was just far too unbearable to cope with and I often travelled with pain killers and sedatives.
The summer of 2006 was about to change all that. In February 2006 I fell pregnant whilst with my partner at the time. During the first three months of the pregnancy my health severely deteriorated. I began to develop extremely poor eyesight, to the extent that I thought I was going blind. I hadn't realised that what I was experiencing was in fact double vision. My eyesight continued to worsen over the coming months and I developed a very bad squint in my left eye. I blamed it all on hormones.
Three months into the pregnancy, due to unforeseen circumstances, I lost the baby. At the same time my relationship broke down. I was inconsolable. Both mentally and physically drained.
Shortly after I went to Spec Savers, explaining how my vision had suddenly deteriorated. They prescribed me glasses, which didn't help. Instead my eyes were straining even more and I started to experience continuous headaches. Every other day I went back to the opticians telling them that my eyes still didn't feel right and each time they replied, "You'll get used to them". Despite repeatedly visiting them they didn't notice that, in a space of a year, my vision had gone from being relatively good to incredibly poor.
It wasn't until I went to my dad's to pick up a car he was giving me that I realised something was seriously wrong.
I began my journey home, joining the M25 and driving in the fast lane. Soon it appeared as though the slow lane of moving traffic was crossing in to the fast lane and vice versa. I was wearing my glasses at the time. Soon I discovered that by closing one eye my vision seemed normal so I continued the drive home with one eye closed. I was nearly home unscathed until I went through width restrictions, hitting the side of the car in the process.
I called my dad as soon as I got home, crying hysterically. He told me to go to another optician straight away.
First thing in the morning, tired, headachy and falling all over the place I walked up to my local Specs Direct for my appointment. 10 minutes into the examination the optician told me to go A&E at Moorfields eye hospital straight away.
Following routine eye tests and observations I was diagnosed with double vision. Due to its severity I had developed a very bad squint. They gave me a plastic prism to fix to the left lens of my glasses. This would reflect light which would enable me to see again. I was then referred to Queen's Hospital for an MIR scan.
After the first consultation I was told that the problem may be caused by a loosening of one of the eye muscles and that this could be rectified with squint surgery.
In August 2006 I returned alone to Moorfields eye hospital having waited over 2 weeks for the MRI results. I thought they would tell me that I could have the squint surgery but that wasn't the case.
After consulting my records a trainee doctor told me that an operation on my eye was inevitable and I would have to wait, maybe up to two years, to ensure that there was no further change in the squint before having surgery. I was dreading that I would have to go around at the age of 27 with a pair of glasses with prisms in which made me look like Blanch from Coronation Street. I was devastated.
It then dawned on me that he hadn't mentioned my MRI.
I asked him if everything was ok with the scan and he just looked at me blankly. "MRI? I'll just check", he said. Half an hour later he returned with approximately 15 more trainees and a specialist. I could tell straight away that there was something wrong. The first thing the head doctor said was "I'm afraid it's not good news."
Initially I thought they were going to tell me that I would have to wear these prisms for the rest of my life and that the eye was inoperable, but it was worse than that.
I was told, "The MRI scan has showed us that you have a Meningioma". A brain tumour. I burst out into hysterical and uncontrollable tears, I couldn't even hear what he was saying to me. DEATH that's all I thought. Death. I'm going to die. The type of tumour I had was inoperable and, although it wasn't cancerous, they would need to monitor me. Six months later I would need to go back for another scan.
I left feeling empty, lost, and confused about the whole situation. They offered me another appointment so that I could bring my parents with me to explain the situation. I remember going straight to the toilets, crying and shaking with fear. I called my dad at work and in the midst of tears screamed out that I had a brain tumour. My dad was shocked, the phone went silent, we were both in despair. If I could turn back time I would have approached that in a different way. At the time all I wanted was to tell him, not thinking how it would affect him whilst at work.
Over the following months my family and I found the situation increasingly harder to cope with. We searched the internet for answers but what we found scared us even more. We then consulted top specialists who all gave the same prognosis. Inoperable.
My mental state worsened and my physical symptoms progressed even further. I was unable to walk and was relying on other people to get me around. My balance and depth perception were poor, and my hearing and vision were getting worse by the day. I was put on one medication after the other which simply made my symptoms worse.
I was in and out of hospital all the time as a result of the severe headaches I was experiencing. Each episode caused complete loss of sensation from the waist down.
This continued for six months. I was going to a physiotherapist who was doing nothing and I lost all motivation to continue with life.
The following year I was referred to ENT at Guys and St Thomas's hospital under the expertise of Professor Gleeson. A Grommet was fitted in my left ear to ease the build up of pressure and loss of hearing.
During the procedure the surgeon found a growth. When I had come out of recovery they explained to me that they had now fitted the Grommet however during the fitting they found something which they did a biopsy on and it turned out to be the Meningioma. At this point they realised that the problems I had been experiencing for nearly ten years were due to the fact that the tumour had been growing within my ear canal.
Although I have tumour in the centre of my brain I also have other carpet layers of the tumour which are spread out to other parts of my brain, one of which is behind my left eye and another within my ear canal.
After I lost the baby I was put back onto the Depo injection which is a contraceptive injection that you have every 11 weeks. At the end of the year I mentioned this to my neurosurgeon. I was told to come off it right away.
Despite being diagnosed with a brain tumour in the August I was still being given the Depo injection which was pumping hormones into my body. The specialists can only speculate that the speed at which the tumour grew was affected by pregnancy. They cannot confirm this as there has not been enough research conducted. It is uncertain how long I have had this tumour but what I do know is that my symptoms began at the same time as my pregnancy. I have been advised not to conceive again.
I regained my vision after two years. I realised that the double vision was relieved when I covered up one eye and I asked my opticians to make up contact lenses which blacked out vision in this eye. Pretty much like a big black pupil which is better than wearing my prisms.
Again, due to the lack of research, specialists cannot confirm how long I have to live, they just don't know. I could have months, years or even decades. Every tumour is different and, as they do not yet know the cause, there is no known cure.
Only 1% of government funding is dedicated to brain tumour research, yet brain tumours are now the most common cause of cancer in young people, overtaking Leukaemia.
