I have survived two different malignant brain tumours, a brain stem stroke, multiple cerebellar strokes and three weeks in a coma.

The cancer required two major brain surgeries followed by a year of chemotherapy and two weeks of spine and whole brain radiotherapy, then four weeks of additional brain radiation treatments. During the chemotherapy I survived a bout of pneumonia, a staph infection and surgery for the insertion of a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt.  This has needed to be replaced twice since then and there have been many complications as a result of having hydrocephalus.

I have lived with asthma and eczema for many years and have endured several relatively minor surgeries including a repair of a heart PFO (patent foramen ovale) and the removal of a large gum cyst.

In spite of all this, I do not have one scar on my body. The reason? Even though I have survived all of this, it wasn’t me in the hospital beds on all those occasions.  It was my children.