‘I was told I had dehydrated eyes but it was actually a brain tumour’

A young West Belfast mum is facing a heart-wrenching battle after being diagnosed with cancer and given just four months to live.

22-year-old Rachael Burns was hit with the devastating news last week, following months of severe headaches and eye discomfort that began eight months ago. Initially dismissed as dehydrated eyes, an urgent trip to the Royal Victoria Hospital uncovered a brain tumour with a rare and aggressive mutation, leaving Rachael and her loved ones reeling from the prognosis.

Rachael, alongside her partner Robert, is the mother to one-year-old Raeya. The family is now scrambling to find alternative treatments abroad in hopes of extending her life. In an emotional interview with Belfast Live, Rachael shared the agony of preparing future birthday cards for her daughter, fearing she won’t be there to celebrate those moments.

Read more: Dublin community rallies around ‘kind’ dad-of-one battling aggressive cancer

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An online fundraiser has been launched for the young mum. Rachael recounted the harrowing details of her latest appointment: “Until last week I had in my head all of this hope that I would still maybe have a few years but at my appointment last week I had to get my mum to leave the room because she didn’t want to hear anything about the prognosis.”

“The consultant then told me that anyone that has come in with the same thing that I have only has nine to 12 months to live, and I’ve shown symptoms for the last eight.”

“I was told to assume that that was the case and try to make the most of the next four months.”

“I left that appointment with no real hope and I didn’t know how to tell my mum and the rest of the family, I didn’t want them to get upset. It felt like everything had just been taken away from me at that point.”

“Everyone has said about just how brave I have been but I just think that if I let myself get really down I’ll just sort of spiral. I think that once people lose hope like that their bodies sort of give up as well.”

“Whenever I find out at first about the diagnosis I ordered loads of different envelopes and stuff so that I can write all her birthday cards for her for when I’m not here to give her them, so that stuff just isn’t easy.”

The young mum added that her symptoms started off with some mild discomfort in her eye, migraines and dizzy spells.

“At the start they weren’t concerned enough to put through a referral to the hospital, so for months I wasn’t able to leave the house with my daughter because of these migraines.”

“They eventually did a CT scan and found a large mass at the bottom of my brain and it was leaning on my central nervous system, so that’s why my eye had gotten so bad.”

“I was left on a trolley bed in the Royal for four days in the acute area because they couldn’t get me into a proper room.”

“Eventually they did an MRI scan and found what’s called a diffuse midline glioma brain tumour, because of where it is there is no chance they can operate on it.”

“They said I would die if they even touched it so the only option for treatment at this point is radiotherapy for six weeks.”

“With the hope now that I might be able to get some extra time with my family, that’s really what is keeping me going right now.”

“There has been different trials and in many cases this has prolonged people’s lives,” she says.

“But because the NHS is so limited in what it can offer, we have to look at different countries and that’s how Germany came about.”

“This is really the last chance for me to be able to spend extra time with my family so we are just going to throw everything at it.”

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