She Thought She Just Had Bad Migraines, But Then Doctors Found A Tumor
By
Shehzad in
Bizarre
On 18th February 2016
Headaches come and go and usually aren’t a big deal. We usually know where it is coming from, like a night of drinking or after staring at a screen for too long.
Every so often though, continuous headaches are a message from your body that something is wrong and needs to be followed up with a visit to the doctor.
Frances Paine, a medical student nearing the end of her studies, began having re-occurring migraines. But like most of us, she brushed them off and ignored them. After all, she needed to finish her degree and nothing was going to get in her way. She kept ignoring the headaches, but that’s when the more serious symptoms started happening…
You need to SHARE this story on Facebook to let your loved ones know how reoccurring migraines may be a bad sign.
#1 In the final stages of medical school, her speech began to degrade.
For several seconds at a time, Frances started losing her ability to speak. This is NOT a usual symptom of migraine headaches and her boyfriend urged her to get to the hospital as soon as she could. But she told him that she felt fine and continued to push through her exam period.
#2 One day she went to go pick up her migraine medication and that’s when a doctor asked her about her symptoms.
He immediately told her to get an MRI scan of her brain to check things out. This is the moment that finally explained where her horrible headaches were coming from.
#3 The doctors spotted a tumor in the parietal cortex of her brain.
The odd thing is that the tumor may have been there her entire life, but only grew to a point where migraines and speech difficulties were apparent in her 20s.
#4 To monitor the growth of the tumor, and determine whether she could continue medical school, she had to travel to get more MRI scans.
Unfortunately, the doctors noticed that the tumor was growing and she had to undergo brain surgery in TWO WEEKS.
But what came next was horrifying.
#5 Of course, Frances was more concerned with the fact that one of her last exams was scheduled at that time.
Oh, Frances The doctors were nice enough to schedule the surgery for the day after her exam. How insane is it though that she had the tenacity to push through and continue working on her degree while travelling between Cambridge and Coventry after getting news of a brain tumor?!
But there's something really crazy about the surgery.
#6 Frances had to be awakened in the middle of brain surgery!
In order to test her speech functioning while the tumor was being removed, doctors had to wake her up during the middle of the 7-hour procedure. This is actually pretty common. Luckily for Francis, the surgery went well and she was in good spirits after she reawakened.
#7 Here she is right after surgery – what a trooper!
I don't even look this good after a full night of sleep, let alone after a 7-hour brain surgery.
#8 Check her out now!
She still has to get regular scans to monitor any remaining tumor after the surgery, but she has recovered and has started training for marathons. So next time you need a workout motivator, just think about Frances Paine. Francis says she's most grateful that she lives in a country where she can have such a major and unexpected medical emergency happen and not be bankrupted for it.
