The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Crushing news for new Fife mum who won’t see her son grow up.
Tyla Livingstone, 21, diagnosed with brain cancer just weeks after little Preston born
A Fife mother was given the heartbreaking news she will not see her son grow up, just weeks after giving birth.
Tyla Livingstone, of Lochgelly, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer aged just 21, and four weeks after the arrival of her son, Preston.
She said: “I’m just living day by day. They say if I’m lucky I’ll have another five years. It doesn’t seem real.
“I don’t think it’s really sunk in properly. It’s more my son I think about – and the fact I will not be there for him in the future.”
Tyla endured a five-hour operation at Western General Hospital in Edinburgh to remove a fast-growing tumour when Preston was just weeks old.
Biopsy results revealed Tyla has a grade four glioblastoma, which is terminal.
She has been given between two and five years to live.
Signs that something was wrong appeared in November last year when Tyla was 31 weeks into her pregnancy.
She told The Scottish Sun: “I had been getting stomach pains so I decided to take a bath but when I was in it my arm started to feel funny and then began seizing up.
“I managed to get out of the tub but I couldn’t breathe. I passed out and when I woke up my gran was on the phone, calling an ambulance. I was in a panic and the paramedics said my blood pressure was high so they took me to hospital. They wanted to test for pre-eclampsia but there was no sign of that so they did an MRI scan.
“The results showed something at the front-left of my brain. At first they said it was a small growth and might be fine, then I was told it was a cancerous growth.”
Medics at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy suggested Tyla might need to give birth early by caesarean section. However, she was referred to the Western General, where they decided to monitor Tyla and her baby until the birth in January. “At 39 weeks I had Preston and it was a traumatic birth,” she said.
“His little heart stopped six times and eventually they had to get him out with forceps.”
A month after the birth, Tyla collapsed and the operation to remove the tumour was brought forward because of the rate at which it was growing.
Her mother, Leah, 41, who will look after Preston when the worst happens, is crowdfunding to help pay for an alternative treatment. She wrote on the funding page: “This is our last hope and praying for a miracle.”