Mum 'sent away from A&E with pain killers' before brain tumour diagnosis

A mum claims that she was sent away from A&E with painkillers before finding out that she was battling a brain tumour. Kimberley Baggley, 27, suffered a week-long migraine which caused her to be sent home from her job as a primary school teacher.

She began to feel pins and needles in the left side of her face in June 2023 and consulted doctors who told her to rest. After a week, her husband Luke Baggley took their six-year-old son George swimming.

When they returned to their Staffordshire home, Kimberly had collapsed in bed after suffering a seizure. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to Royal Stoke University Hospital where a CT scan and MRI scan revealed she had a brain tumour.

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The mum underwent a craniotomy which removed 95 per cent of the tumour and was told she had a grade three astrocytoma - a rare, aggressive, and malignant brain tumour. Kimberley underwent 33 sessions of radiotherapy and is currently having chemotherapy.

Kimberley said: “'You have a brain tumour' are the five words that changed our lives for the foreseeable future. You never think something like this is going to happen to you, but when it does, your whole world revolves around something that you know nothing about - it’s terrifying.

"Your life stops when you’re diagnosed with a brain tumour. There is so much unknown ahead of you, and a long process that puts other parts of your life on hold. It’s time things changed, for me and everyone else living with a brain tumour. That’s why research into more effective treatments is so urgently needed.”

Kimberley was at work when she started suffering from a migraine and got sent home. She started to experience tingling pain in her face so went to her local doctor and A&E department around five times but she was sent away with painkillers.

Kimberley said: “You need to take time for yourself, go on a spa day and 'it’s definitely not a brain tumour' were all things said to me that week. I’d never even thought it could be, I didn’t know anything about brain tumours and was so care-free with life, it wasn’t something I had even dreamed would be the case.”

It was a week later when Luke and George found Kimberley unconscious. Kimberley added: "I was terrified, I didn't know what was going on. Never in a million years did I think that it would be a brain tumour - it was total confusion.

"In that moment, your whole world crashes. I know it sounds cliché, but you don't see how things will get better - it is terrifying. My husband was terrified as he didn't know what was going to happen.

"I remember my consultant said that it wasn't the worst but it wasn't the best tumour to get and that put me at ease. I was quite naïve when I first got diagnosed as I am such a positive person and always try to make the best out of a situation. I thought I would have the operation and that would be it."

A month after her first surgery, she had an infection which meant she had to have a further operation and part of her skull removed. Since then she’s also battled sepsis, which delayed the start of her treatment. But she has now completed 33 sessions of radiotherapy and is on her 10th round of chemotherapy.

Kimberley continued: "The person that my diagnosis has affected the most is my husband. He has had to carry on going to work whilst trying to look after me and our son. He has taken on two roles and been mum and dad for the past year.

"My little lad found it tough at first, one day he came out with 'mum are you going to die' which was tough to hear. It has affected them and my wider family, to watch someone you love go through something this awful must be terrifying for them too."

Since her diagnosis, Kimberley abseiled down Anfield Stadium to raise £7,000 for The Brain Tumour Support and started a support group in Stoke-on-Trent to help other people going through a cancer diagnosis. The Brain Tumour Charity has awarded a £225,000 Future Leaders grant to fund research that will investigate better ways to treat high-grade brain tumours like Kimberley's using immunotherapy approaches.

Dr Simon Newman, chief scientific officer at The Brain Tumour Charity, said: "High-grade brain tumours are some of the most devastating brain tumours and current treatments are just not good enough. We hope that by understanding the immune system and how it responds to brain tumours, we can improve immunotherapy treatment options and make the same progress in brain tumours that we have seen in other cancers.

"Funding through our Future Leaders programme will continue to transform the research landscape and help us accelerate a cure for this disease."

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