Hero mum with brain tumour raises £30k for charity

Since her diagnosis, Suzanne has raised £30,000

Since her diagnosis of a grade 4 brain tumour in April last year, 37-year-old mother of two, Suzanne from Newtonhill, has managed to raise the funds for The Brain Tumour Charity.

Suzanne also agreed to undergo a craniotomy on her tumour while fully conscious before starting chemo and radiotherapy.

Suzanne has just been nominated for RBS: Finding Scotland’s Real Heroes 2015.

Suzanne was diagnosed when she was just 35

Suzanne said: “Like many, I lived life at 100mph and took my health and abilities for granted. In April 2014 my outlook changed when completely out of the blue, and at age 35, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

“The surgery was as successful as it could have been and I’ve received radiotherapy and chemotherapy since then. This is a long journey and unfortunately when diagnosed with a brain tumour it is something that will never go away, unlike cancer in some other parts of the body.

“I’m ashamed to say that I had buried my head in the sand about the dreaded word ‘cancer’ and so neither I nor my family had much idea about what brain tumours were, what the treatment was.

“I recognised very quickly that brain tumours don’t receive as much funding as many other types of cancer - less than 2 per cent of the research funding in the UK is spent on brain tumours.”

Suzanne used to live life at 100mph

Geraldine Pipping, the charity’s head of fundraising said: “Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and people under 40 in the UK and survival rates have not improved significantly over the last 40 years.

“We receive no government funding and rely 100% on voluntary donations, fundraising and gifts in wills.

It is through the efforts of people like Suzanne that we can change these shocking statistics in the future and bring hope to the thousands of people who are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year.”

Suzanne’s fundraising page is https://www.justgiving.com/suzeonamission/