A nurse with a golf ball-sized brain tumour was told for months by her GP she was just "approaching the menopause" before finally sending her for scans.
When Anne Murdy was eventually diagnosed with a large meningioma tumour, close to her brain stem, she said her main worry was not seeing her teenage daughter grow up.
"There were moments when I crumbled," the 55-year-old mum who works at Thornhill Community Hospital, near Dumfries, Scotland, told the Daily Record.
Anne is still awaiting her post-op scan results and is recovering at home after undergoing a 10-hour operation that left her with double vision, ataxia and facial numbness.
She first thought something was wrong when she fell over in a supermarket car park last August.
She said: "I convinced myself I must’ve tripped over something, as I was in a hurry to collect my daughter, but something didn’t seem right about it."
She also noticed her voice was becoming huskier and she would cry uncontrollably, even when she didn’t feel sad.
Anne said: "I went to see my GP, who told me the symptoms were hormonal, as I was approaching the menopause, and he gave me antidepressants."
In January, she was finally sent for an MRI scan which revealed the tumour.
Mum-of-one Anne said: "I suspected they must have found something in my brain when they took me out of the scanner after 20 minutes to inject me with contrast dye.
"There were moments when I crumbled.
"My husband John and I waited a long time to have our daughter, Star [who’s 15], and after waiting so long to become a mum, the thought of not being able to see my wee girl through university and her other milestones is unbearable."
Anne is organising a fundraising event to help find a cure for the illness.
She said: "When I heard about Brain Tumour Research’s Do Lunch campaign to raise money for the charity, I knew it was something I wanted to be involved in."
