Tony’s tribute to loving mum who died of brain tumour
SON has paid tribute to his brave mother after she died of a brain tumour following a long battle against the illness.
Tony Taylor, 41, a primary school teacher from Sandiacre, explained how his mother’s illness went undiagnosed for a number of months despite the family’s attempts to get her seen by her GP.
Pamela Taylor died in July after fighting a brain tumour for twoand-a-half years.
Tony said: “She was very family orientated, loved having time with the grandkids – she ended up retiring early so she could spend more time with them.
“That was what she loved, it was family above all else.
“When we went on holiday in 2018, we came back and my mum turned up with a blood pressure monitor and said she’d had a few funny turns.
“She said it was kind of like this feeling in her head and arms and she couldn’t really explain what it was, a numbing, buzzing kind of feeling that didn’t last very long, only 30 seconds, and would then go away.
“It then took seven months from the July to getting a diagnosis in March 2019.”
Pamela was eventually diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumour when she was 62, following months of doctor’s appointments and scans.
Her diagnosis came from a consultant who ran a pen across her foot and noticed her toes reacted in a different way to what would have been expected.
Tony, whose boys Sebastian, 12, and Nathanael, nine, are Pamela’s grandsons, said the delay in diagnosis had been “frustrating”.
“There was no headache at all but it never really sounded like blood pressure or vertigo,” he said.
“When my mum finally did get seen by a specialist, from what I heard they just used a pen on the bottom of her foot and apparently toes should go one way as a reflex, but my mum’s toes went the other way and that’s how the consultant knew a pathway was blocked somewhere.
“I think that’s what was frustrating – you didn’t need expensive equipment or expert training, something like that could well have been done in a GP surgery and it was a red flag.”
But, Tony admits that Pamela initially coped well with all her treatments.
She underwent several rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to try to shrink the tumour, which was an aggressive stage four diagnosis.
Her brain tumour mainly affected her mobility, which Tony said he is grateful for, as it did not affect her memory.
“I was always concerned that if my mum didn’t know who my dad was it would be really frightening for her and awful for my dad,” he said.
“Luckily the tumour hit the mobility side more than the memory side of it. It was a bit of a blessing, but the mobility was hard.
“She could still sit and knit but life became from the bedroom to the chair.
“It was difficult, and because my mum was so close to my boys, it was very difficult because they’ve not known anyone in the family who has been that sick.
“You were trying to deal with it yourself, and for my dad and for the boys. But you got used to it, but the fact that you got used to it was quite hard to deal with as well.”
Pamela died on July 17 this year and now Tony is raising money for Brain Tumour Research in his mother’s memory.
On October 3, he ran the LonA don Marathon in aid of the charity and raised more than £8,000.
After originally getting a place in last year’s event, which was delayed by the pandemic, Tony was determined to keep his place.
He said: “It was almost like you wanted to control something. Everything that was happening was out of our control and I wanted to do something that I could control and put my energy into.
“I wanted something to get my teeth into, I don’t want to say it was to turn it into a positive because you’re not turning this into a positive, but I just wanted to help and take action.”
You can donate to Tony’s fundraiser at https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com