A BRADFORD man has bravely spoken about his battle with a brain tumour after he collapsed on the first day of his new job.

Engineer Cameron Walker, 26, was diagnosed after experiencing his first seizure on the first day of his new job at a meal delivery company. 

Cameron, who is now living in Nuneaton in Warwickshire, explained what happened. 

He said: “I’d relocated across the country for my new job and while I was being given a tour of the factory shop floor, I suddenly lost consciousness and fell to the floor, hitting my head on a metal platform on the way down. 

“I vaguely remember panicked voices and being wheeled away to the first aid room.

"Paramedics rushed me to the local hospital, where they performed a scan of my head to check that the impact hadn’t caused any internal bleeding. 

“That was when they found a ‘lesion’ in a totally different part of my brain to where I’d hit my head.

"I was put on anticonvulsant medication, told I could no longer drive and stayed in a ward that whole first week.”

After several MRI scans, Cameron was told he probably had a low-grade glioma brain tumour situated towards the back of his left frontal lobe.

But it was later confirmed to be an astrocytoma.

He said: “It took a good couple of months for this information to sink in, and when it finally did, I was utterly broken.

"Everything changed for me on Monday the 21st of February 2022.” 

In a guest blog post for The Brain Tumour Charity, Cameron wrote: “How could this have happened to me? I’m active, I eat well, I have no cognitive impairment.

"I couldn’t understand how I’d never experienced any symptoms whatsoever, yet this abnormal cluster of cells had been slowly growing for years in my brain, perhaps from birth, or perhaps from adolescence. I’ll never know for certain."

Cameron’s tumour is situated in the left-side motor strip of his brain, which controls all voluntary movement in the right side of the body.

It hasn’t been possible to surgically remove the tumour.

Following radiotherapy, he had six cycles of six weeks of chemotherapy and has since rung the bell in hospital to symbolise that it was over.

But the tumour is still there, he now has an MRI scan every six months in a ‘watch and wait’ strategy.

He continued: "I’ve learned that I can’t leave the brain tumour behind, and I can’t let it dominate me.

"Everything changed for me that day in February, and I must find a way to coexist peacefully with a passenger in my brain that is ultimately a part of who I am, and who I’ve always been.”