A woman whose symptoms were dismissed as minor is now urging people to persevere when seeking medical help after she was given a devastating brain tumour diagnosis. Claudia Laird, from Burnley, was going through her nurse training when out of nowhere she started feeling very tired and puzzled. She even began walking into windows thinking they were doors. At only 24, she blamed the night shifts for her tiredness while
Friends labelled her a late riser. She visited her doctor many times but her symptoms always pointed towards either stomach bugs or side effects from the contraceptive pill. It wasn't until a scan that the real cause came to light. Claudia was studying to be a nurse when her symptoms began ( Image: Claudia Laird/MEN) "I used to sleep in until about 10 or 11 o'clock, and I remember my friends calling me lazy at the time," she said." I thought I was just burning the candle at both ends because I was doing loads of night shifts on a really intense ward. And that's maybe why for quite a while I didn't really think something may have been wrong.", reports the Manchester Evening News . By January 2022, things escalated drastically. Claudia started slurring, she had a ringing noise in her ears and was throwing up frequently. She also lost all feelings in her arms and her heart rate became unusually high. One time, an ambulance had to take her to the hospital because they thought she had gastroenteritis. Claudia started seeing things at night, became forgetful and getting mixed up - she even walked into a window thinking it was a door. Her family called the doctor who said it was just gastroenteritis again. Claudia knew something wasn't right, so she asked for a brain scan - but they said no. "I mean, to be honest, I was quite disappointed. I was declined a few times," she shared. "And I remember once they said, 'We don't give out brain scans willy-nilly to 24 year olds.' They told me to stop taking my birth control pill and said it was probably just hormones, stress, or worry." "I went to the eye doctor and A&E three or four times, and the doctor said 'oh, it's just an infection.' I was confused. I was walking into windows thinking they were doors. Like I just remember those specific moments where I thought something was not right. I knew it wasn't an infection in my stomach because I work in healthcare and had a feeling it might have been something with my brain." When the tumour was finally discovered Claudia underwent hours of surgery ( Image: Claudia Laird/MEN) Claudia kept having problems over the next few days like blurry vision, trouble keeping her balance, and hearing strange sounds for a few minutes at a time. Claudia's mum arranged another appointment with the GP, this time in person rather than over the phone. Following this, they scheduled a visit to Blackburn Ambulatory Care for the next day. "I went home with the referral on the advice that if things got worse that I would go to AandE," Claudia shared. "That evening, while studying for one of my nursing exams, I found that I couldn't read the words clearly on my laptop, I started being sick and then I lost the feeling in one of my hands. "We returned to AandE but we left at midnight because we didn't feel that we were being taken seriously. In fact, a nurse asked us 'what are you doing here? GPs always send you here.'". The following morning, Claudia had her scheduled scan which revealed she had a brain tumour - later identified as a Grade 2 Astrocytoma. After waiting for an ambulance for 12 hours, she was moved to Preston Hospital where she underwent ten hours of emergency surgery to remove the tumour. "When they did the scan, everyone's faces dropped because I think they realised how serious it was. It was a seven-by-five tumour that was pushing from my right-hand side to my left," Claudia recalled. It was a long journey to diagnosis, but Claudia says her recovery has been 'brilliant' ( Image: MEN/Claudia Laird) "Looking back on it now it's like the whole thing was just crazy. Everything is a blur. I was lucky to have my family by my side for support. One blessing is that my recovery from surgery was brilliant. They said it was miraculous because of how big it was and how much they were able to remove. "There was obviously some side effects that remain with me from the first surgery and I'm still recovering from the trauma of it all." Claudia says The Brain Tumour Charity has been brilliant in supporting her. "I never thought something like this would happen to me, so when I was diagnosed I looked for support groups to find people going through a similar thing," she said. "The Brain Tumour Charity offers lots of support and I've met so many people along my journey who are going through a similar situation to me and become best friends with them." Two years after she first became ill, Claudia has ongoing problems with fatigue and memory and goes for regular scans to monitor her condition. She now urges all young people who may feel their health concerns are not being heard to 'speak up' and persevere." "I mean, that's the main thing isn't that I think, pushing to get that diagnosis and raising awareness from every aspect of it," she said. "There are so many symptoms that come with brain tumours, for example, personality changes, which can be described as a mental health condition. So if you feel something is not right you need to push for it and tell someone how you feel. ".