Mum diagnosed with brain tumour after mistaking symptom for tinnitus
A woman was diagnosed with a brain tumour after she thought the noise in her ear was a symptom of tinnitus.
Denise Wingfield, 55, says she struggled to sleep due to the dull, ‘funny’ noise in her ear, which she was told was tinnitus following an appointment with a specialist.
However, after an MRI, doctors found an anomaly on Wingfield’s brain.
"I had no symptoms other than a funny noise in my ear," Wingfield explains.
"When I tried to sleep at night it seemed louder although it was there all the time – I never for a moment imagined it was caused by a brain tumour."
A month after her MRI, Wingfield underwent a nine hour awake craniotomy and was diagnosed with grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare brain tumour.
This was followed by six weeks of radiotherapy for the mum-of-three, and four rounds of chemotherapy – but a recent scan from earlier this year found that the tumour had grown.
"Due to my tumour being slow growing, my medical team want to wait for further growth before they place me on another treatment plan, including a less brutal version of chemotherapy," Wingfield explains.
"Although it’s scary to know that it is still growing, I am being scanned regularly which offers some comfort."
Wingfield is now focussed on raising money for Brain Tumour Research and will be participating in the ‘200K in May’ challenge, which will see her run, jog, cycle, and swim this distance in the month of May to support the charity.
"I’ve found myself wanting to live my life to the full," Wingfield says. "In the years since surgery, I have travelled and taken part in adrenaline fuelled activities including a zip wire with my son from the end of Bournemouth pier to the beach."
Louise Aubrey, community development manager at Brain Tumour Research, says that 16,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year.
"Yet, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to brain tumours since records began in 2022," she adds.
To donate to Brain Tumour Research via Denise’s challenge, please visit Just Giving.
Additional reporting by SWNS.
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