Derbyshire mum who put ‘weird feelings’ down to pregnancy actually had aggressive brain tumour

Lauren Champion, 31, first realised something was wrong while heavily pregnant in October 2021.

She dismissed her condition at the time, believing it was a product of her circumstances.

Seamstress Lauren said: “I had weird feelings of confusion, loss of muscle control down my right side, and loss of my peripheral vision in my right eye.

“I just thought I was tired and slightly stressed from having a busy lifestyle.”

But, five weeks after giving birth to baby Otto, Lauren was still suffering from the same symptoms.

And, in November 2021, she had a tonic-clonic seizure and was rushed to hospital - where the real cause was found.

Lauren, from Belper, said: “At the hospital, I felt back to normal and didn’t remember the seizure.

"But I had a CT scan which revealed a lesion on my brain. I thought, 'this sort of thing doesn’t happen to me' and that we hadn’t planned for in our lives.”

Lauren, who is also mum to Mischa, 10, and Margot, three, had brain surgery at Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham in December 2021.

The surgeon was able to remove most of the tumour but left some because it was growing around a major blood vessel.

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Lauren said: “The operation went really well, and I was discharged the next day. I was out running two weeks later.

“Unfortunately, the tumour is a grade 3 hemangiopericytoma, which is very aggressive.”

Lauren, who is married to Pete, 39, is now in training for the Derby 10K race to raise money for Brain Tumour Research.

She said: “It’s massively changed my life, so I wanted to do something I love for a charity that means so much to me.

“There is such a lack of research into this devastating disease and more needs to be done to spot the early symptoms.”

Matthew Price, community development manager at Brain Tumour Research said: “We’re really grateful to Lauren for taking on the Derby 10k for us, as it’s only with the support of people like her that we’re able to progress our research.”

To donate to Lauren’s GoFundMe page, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/laurens-fundraising-for-brain-tumour-research