Headaches signal tumour
Young nursing student’s life alters overnight with cancer diagnosis
It started with headaches. Then they got worse — so bad that Jordan Dolbear had to take time off from his clinical placement for his nursing degree. But then the Aucklander started getting nausea and double vision too.
By November 11, the 24-year-old’s doctor was telling him and his family he had a malignant stage-four tumour on his brain.
“It was definitely a bit surreal ... I guess disbelief and shock was the first stage and it took a while for me to comprehend that I’ve actually got cancer,” Dolbear said. “Even now I just try and block it out.”
He said he was lucky the diagnosis came during the last semester of his nursing degree studies through Manukau Institute of Technology — he managed to scrape through with a pass, despite missing 40 hours. Now he has just the state exam, which he hopes to do in March or July.
Dolbear has always kept pretty healthy, he says. He’s been an avid soccer player all his life, was a regular gymgoer, ate relatively healthily and didn’t smoke. “You just think it won’t happen to you, ever. But here we are.”
After his initial doctor’s visits, he was told he’d probably caught a virus or bad flu and was advised to rest.
But when he got worse he admitted himself to Middlemore Hospital where they did a CT scan. “They found a 5cm tumour in the frontal lobe of my brain.”
How to help
Surgery on November 1 was a success and many symptoms vanished. But after testing of the tumour biopsy he was given the bad news.
He’s had to move out of his flat and mum Sandra has left her job as a social worker for the Canterbury District Health Board and moved to Auckland to help care for her son. The pair now share a small flat. He admitted it had been a tough time, especially for his mum. “She was devastated to hear the news, to be honest. She has been strong for me but every now and then she gets tearful and gets down a little bit.”
Dolbear had planned Christmas in Christchurch but it will now be spent in Auckland with family, including his two sisters — Chloe, 27, and Brisbanebased Brooke, 22.
Now his pain and symptoms are under control he has been booked in to begin radiation and chemotherapy treatment this month, and he is enjoying a bit of normality again.
“I was pretty unwell and in a lot of pain but now I’m out and about. I went to church today, I’ve started back at the gym doing light exercises and can do everyday things like cook but I’m still taking it easy because I do get headaches . . . now and then.”
But the costs are building and an old Elim Christian School friend, Joshua Robinson, has set up a Givealittle page to help the family with their expenses.
Dolbear has been humbled by the act and said people had offered to help but admitted there wasn’t a lot they could do. “There’s not a lot you can do, but I guess financially trying to move into a new place and things it really does have an effect on everything so this is going to help.”