WHERE IT ALL BEGAN.

I used to be normal.

I worked in a school as a teaching assistant, I gigged on the weekends and went out with my friends. I studied Music Industry Entrepreneurship online at Cardiff Atrium University. I lived with my gorgeous boyfriend and his amazing family and life was pretty sweet!

 

Until one day in May 2014, I was in work when all of a sudden a pain hit me in my left eye. I thought it was just hay fever as I have suffered with it quite badly for years so I ignored it and carried on... Until when I got back into the classroom the children were afraid of me,

"Miss Frazer, why has your eye gone all funny?"

 

Unaware of this, I went to look in the mirror. The left side of my face had completely dropped and my eye was almost completely closed. I could lift it if I raised my eyebrows but otherwise it was out of my control. The headmaster sent me home and told me to visit the Doctors. 

 

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This would turn out to be one of many.

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The Doctor told me that it could be bad hay fever seeing as I suffered from it yearly, and sent me on my way with the strongest anti-histamines, eye drops and nasal spray. Nothing helped and I ended up visiting the Doctor surgery 5 times within the space of a week. My eye would drop in the daytime but once I went home and napped for an hour or two, it would have lifted itself up until...

One night I was out with my boyfriend and my grandparents, when out of nowhere my eye fell. All the windows and doors were shut and it was about 9pm. There was no way that pollen would have been able to trigger my eye all of a sudden, as we had been in there about 2 hours when my eye randomly collapsed with an excruciating pain and instant phobia to the lights, so I rushed home to sleep it off.

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FIRST ROUND OF TESTS.

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The next morning I woke up and instantly just didn't feel right.

One look in the mirror confirmed my feelings - my eye hadn't lifted. This had never happened before, and I panicked. I went off to the Doctors for the fifth time that week, where he finally said that this was out of his hands and there had to be something going on that he couldn't help me with and he sent me over to the eye clinic at our local Hospital.

For 4 days straight eye specialists performed extensive tests to try and figure out what the problem was, to no avail. On the Friday - the 4th day - they told me they were referring me for an emergency MRI scan, but that it could take 3 months to come through and gave me strict instructions that if there was any changes over the weekend whilst they were closed, to go straight to A&E. 

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On the Saturday afternoon, I felt ok in myself and now wore sunglasses everywhere - inside and outside - to go out to a couple of shops with my grandmother. We were there for about half an hour before a pain shot me right behind my droopy eye, along with a severe pressure headache at the bottom of my skull. I felt as though my brain was going to explode.

She took me home instantly where I headed straight to bed with my eye mask on, blackout blinds down and paracetamol popped as I slept through the whole day until the next morning where things only got worse.

 

 

ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL.

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The following morning I was awoken to the same pains but 10 times worse to the point where I was screaming down the house! I called my mum to tell her what was happening and she rang the NHS line to tell them I was going in and we rushed to A&E.

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I didn't care how I looked with my sunglasses on, blanket over my head. I didn't care how loud I cried and screamed even though there were a few familiar faces in there. 

 

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All I cared about, was getting rid of this pain.

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Usually it takes about 2 hours to get through to the Doctors but often a good few hours more. You go through to the Nurse after about an hour where she takes minor details, then a Doctor will call you in an hour or so later - but I was in such a state that they put me in a back room within 10 minutes. I was rocking myself with my hands over my ears trying to block out people's whispers; it felt like they were screaming at me. They closed the blinds in the private room and gave me some medication and drawing my blood.

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Within 20 minutes I had already seen various Nurses and at least 3 Doctors, 2 of whom were specialised in ophthalmology, but even they didn't have a clue what was going on. They soon decided to admit me to one of the wards where I would be seen by Doctors on Monday but would be taken care of and given lots of painkillers to get me through the weekend.

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The next few months of my life flew by and it's a total blur to me to be honest, but I'll try my best to remember as much as I can.

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YOU'RE WHAT WE CALL A "RED HERRING".

 

During the first two weeks of tests in Ysbyty Gwynedd, I had more blood tests and pills than you could ever imagine. I also saw more Doctors, Nurses and trainee medical students than you could ever imagine too.

I had 2 CT scans of my brain which found nothing, followed by an MRI scan - which also found nothing.

None of my tests were indicating what was causing all these strange symptoms and all the Drs called me a "red herring" due to it. 

Nobody had a clue.

Until one day, a Neurologist called Dr Davies came to the ward to see me, who was based in The Walton Centre of Neurology in Liverpool, a hospital in Birmingham and in Ysbyty Gwynedd. He examined me like every other Doctor but he was one of the only ones who seemed to have an idea of what was going on. He told me that I would be sent down for another MRI scan the following day and that hopefully this time it would pick up something that others hadn't.

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I went off into the shower room to change with the Nurses' help, whilst Dr Davies stayed to chat with my mum. 

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Then he said something no one had expected.

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He turned to her and said he had a feeling he knew what was wrong, and said, "I think that your daughter either has a  (the best outcome out of the 3), a 

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STILL IN THE PROCESS OF WRITING THE FULL STORY - CHECK BACK SOON!

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Mine was a menignoma and it was 1.6cm to start with, yet came out at over 2.5cms! 

I had all sorts pressure headaches at the back of my head down my neck, nose bleeds, droopy eye throughout my whole illness and lifted straight back up after surgery (I had Parinaud's Syndrome) stopped being able to walk, memory loss, nausea, dizziness, extreme pain all over my body as if I'd gone to the gym but a hundred times worse, tingles, neck pain and all sorts of things lol. All have gone apart from tingles, body pain, memory loss and I still can't walk.

I feel like a new version of myself, but I will never be the person I was before surgery - and I'm ok with that because at least I'm alive.

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