A teenager was told she was suffering from a migraine by doctors before scans revealed she had a brain tumour - just months after her step-mum was told she was terminally ill.
Daisy Cranshaw was still processing the heartbreaking news mum-of-three Tina could be dead within a year due to her own tumour when she started suffering excruciating headaches of her own.
The 16-year-old was finally given an emergency MRI when she developed a blind spot in one of her eyes.
Months earlier, Tina, 51, was on a work Zoom call when she started slurring her words and her face drooped, reports StokeonTrentLive.
She also complained of being able to smell gas and her shocked colleagues called an ambulance.
Doctors originally thought she'd suffered a stroke, but tests revealed she had a terminal brain tumour the size of a golf ball and just 12 months to live.
Daisy said Tina, who works for a charity, was on an online video meeting at home in Doncaster, South Yorks, when colleagues first realised something was wrong.
She said: "During the meeting, my step mum had the worst headache, and she could smell gas.
“She started slurring her words and her face drooped, so her colleagues called an ambulance."
Tina, also mum to Theo, nine, Imogen, 28, and Abbie, 31, was taken to Doncaster Royal Infirmary (DRI).
Doctors initially thought she had suffered a stroke, but a CT scan revealed a shadow on her brain.
Tina was then sent to Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield for a further MRI scan, with doctors confirming there that she had a brain tumour.
Daisy said: “It was horrible. I was doing my mock GCSEs, so it was a really stressful time.
"I was so worried, I kept thinking: ‘This may be the last time I see my step mum’.”
On October 2, 2020, Tina underwent an operation to remove the tumour, which was the size of a golf ball.
But she was given the devastating diagnosis that she only had between six and 12 months to live.
Daisy, of Middlesbrough, North Yorks., said her symptoms had started in February of the same year.
Her GP put her headaches down to stress and when she went to A&E, medics had told her she had a migraine.
It was only during a face-to-face appointment with her GP in September 2021 that she told him she had a blind spot on the left side of her eye.
On December 9, she had an emergency MRI scan which revealed a mass on her brain.
She was then referred to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle, where her tumour was confirmed.
Luckily for Daisy, her tumour is non-life-threatening, but she said the news was still hard to take for the family.
She added: “It was the worst thing to hear, especially after seeing what my step-mum has gone through.
“Dad is gradually losing his wife, and I thought that he could also be losing me. It was horrible.
“Fortunately, they found that some of my brain tumour is dead, which is brilliant news.
“I need to have scans every three months, but I’ve been told it’s not life-threatening and they don’t need to operate yet.”
Daisy is walking 10,000 steps every day this month to raise money for Brain Tumour Research.
She said: “There is such a lack of research into this devastating disease and more needs to be done.
“Not everyone is as fortunate as me to not have to have any treatment immediately like my wonderful step mum.
“She’s my inspiration in doing this as she always makes me persevere in everything I do.”
