Oliver's Story

In May 2021, Oliver age 21 started getting strong headaches and he was feeling really nauseous which was unusual for him.

This was all during COVID so he could only have a GP appointment over the phone. He was told he had a viral infection and told to take paracetamol for his sinuses.

Oliver wasn’t getting any better, contacted walk-in centre and GP again and was to be treated for cluster headaches.

On 8 June, Oliver was sick during the night. He called NHS 111 and was told to go to hospital, so he went to Accident and Emergency at Aintree University Hospital in the early hours of the morning.

He had an MRI scan; the doctors told us there was a mass on his brain which could be cancerous and there was a lot of swelling.
“Our world suddenly changed; Oliver was healthy, he liked going out with his friends and watching Everton. We just weren’t expecting something like this.”

Oliver was told if he didn’t undergo surgery, he would be in a coma within a few days, so he was transferred to the Walton Centre
Oliver underwent surgery and 70% of the tumour was removed. The biopsy from the operation showed Oliver had a grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma brain tumour.

He had two months of radiotherapy at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool. Following this ,Oliver had three months of chemotherapy which left him feeling so tired. He also lost a lot of weight.
“In December, Oliver had an MRI scan which showed the tumour had grown. That was horrible to hear after all of the effort that was put in to stop it.”
On 15 January 2022, surgeons managed to remove a further 20% of the tumour during an awake craniotomy. The remaining 10% could not be taken because it was so close to his optic nerves.

“Oliver had more radiotherapy and chemotherapy but an MRI scan in July showed the tumour had grown again. He was also told that further surgery was not an option because of the tumour’s sensitive location.”

We knew Oliver would never be cancer-free but it was so frustrating to have run out of treatment options on the NHS. The standard of care on the NHS hasn’t changed in years. Even though brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer.

We began researching brain tumours and found out about immunotherapy vaccines in Germany, It’s a lot more advanced than anything that is offered on the NHS.

The treatment is very expensive so we set up a JustGiving page to fund the treatment, to help Oliver fight this cancer.

In November 2022, the clinic in Germany had done sequence testing and told us they were able to create a vaccine for Oliver. Unfortunately his latest scan results the following week showed the tumour had grown again, which meant the chemotherapy he was on wasn’t working.

In December, Oliver started having problems with his vision in his left-eye, so he was put on steroids to reduce any swelling.He was struggling with his vision which then affected his balance. He was also starting to slur when he spoke, and he couldn’t remember certain words.

On 12 January, Oliver had another scan at the Clatterbridge. We were told there had been significant growth on his tumour.

Oliver had already tried three different types and none of them worked so he decided against it. For the first time I asked his prognosios I was told be looking at a months/weeks left to live. We spent time as a family though Oliver was sleeping lots.

After a few days he began struggling to swallow so he was put on a syringe pump to administer his medication.
All of Oliver’s family and friends came to visit him which was lovely. 0n evening of 8th Feb 23 he began to struggle with his breathing amd Oliver passed away, with me, Billy and Oliver’s sister, Emily, by his side in the early hours of 9th Feb 2023 aged 23

When Oliver was diagnosed, we became part of a club I never wanted to be part of. Things have got to change and the Government needs to allocate more money to research this devastating disease.

We have returned to trying to live some new kind of new normal and this break from Ben Saunders Foundation will give us a chance as a family to spend sometime together, Oliver is always part of us and missed beyond any words can explain xx