A student who thought she needed glasses after suffering headaches was horrified to find she had a deadly brain tumour.
Samantha Griffiths, then just 19, was told that the tumour was causing so much pressure behind her eyes that it could have left her blind, or even killed her.
Just three days later she underwent a life-saving operation to relieve the pressure by a new passage being drilled through her brain, Wales Online reports.
Now completely recovered Samantha, from Neath, Wales, is about to graduate with a first class honours from the university of South Wales (USW) and is looking forward to starting her career as a fashion designer.
"I'd been having terrible headaches and was really sensitive to light," Samantha, now 24, said.
"My gran had sadly passed away at the start of the year so I thought maybe I had become depressed. It made sense at the time because I was no longer enjoying my uni work, even though I'd always wanted to study fashion, so I knew something wasn’t right.
"I went back and forth to my GP and they put it down to depression but I felt in my gut that it wasn’t. I just couldn’t work out why I was in so much pain. So I decided to see the optician and once he looked behind my eyes I was rushed to A&E and that's when they discovered the tumour.
"As soon as the doctor told me I convinced myself that it was cancer and that I wasn't going to survive. I was in a state of shock and started thinking about all the things I hadn't yet done in life."
Thankfully Samantha's operation at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, went smoothly and although she still has the tumour it no longer causes her problems and she is able to lead a relatively normal life with regular MRI scans and eye tests to monitor her brain health.
Having taken some time out to recover Samantha returned to USW to retake part of the studies she had missed before spending a year in London on work placements with some of the industry's biggest brands.
"I did a series of internships with labels including Julien Macdonald, Ted Baker, and GTIG London, which make clothes for all sorts of high street shops such as Primark, Zara, Bonmarche, and even some supermarkets," she said.
"They were all completely different and helped me to focus on the customer when designing a garment rather than just following the latest trends.
"I learned a lot about how the industry works and I was able to vastly improve my CAD [computer-aided design] skills which was invaluable."
