A mother was diagnosed with a condition that will end her life after she said doctors dismissed her severe headaches and bouts of dizziness as menopausal symptoms. Claire Nutter, 48, is now raffling off her home of 21 years to finance potentially life-saving cancer treatment in Germany following the heartbreaking diagnosis.
The former beauty therapist was found to have an oligodendroglioma – a slow-growing brain tumour – after numerous visits to the doctor. She has now voiced her “frustration” at being initially “fobbed off” by medical professionals who attributed her symptoms to menopause.
Claire, from Roughlee, Lancashire, said: “When you hear about other people who’ve had brain tumours, it sounds like everyone kind of gets fobbed off at first. I don’t know how it all works, but you just think – gosh, why don’t you just send me for a scan?”.
“When you look back, my symptoms were very typical of someone who has a brain tumour. I was passing out, I felt sick when I went from sitting to standing. I have been told I have a life expectancy of 10 to 15 years with six or seven ‘good years’ before you would be able to tell I had a tumour.”
Since then, she has endured three operations, though surgeons could only extract half of the growth. Chemotherapy proved unsuccessful, whilst radiotherapy was deemed too risky due to potential side effects. With no additional treatment options available through the NHS, Claire and her loved ones began a frantic search for alternatives, including private care overseas.
Mother-of-two Claire explained: “I wanted to try some alternative treatments to see if anything we are doing could have an impact on the tumour itself. It’s stable at the moment.
“It is tough, especially as I had been self-employed before and I’ve not worked since. You worry about your family and children, plus financial worries on top. As soon as I found out I had a brain tumour, I also wasn’t able to drive anymore.”
The diagnosis has also impacted her capacity to manage busy social environments.
Claire added: “When people are all around me, it’s given me a type of social anxiety and I can’t cope with crowded spaces where so many conversations are going on in one room at the same time.”
A glimmer of hope emerged when a friend informed her about a specialist clinic in Germany providing a treatment unavailable on the NHS. The treatment programme, which involves developing a ‘vaccine’ from her own cancer cells, carries an estimated price tag of £350,000 – plus travel costs for numerous appointments. To secure the necessary funds, Claire took the heart-wrenching decision to raffle her £800,000 property.
She said: “I have lived here for 21 years – it is my home and I love the area we live in. I got upset the other day when we were setting up the raffle page, because I don’t want to move – but you can make anywhere home, it doesn’t have to be big and fancy. If it means being alive and living in a smaller house, life is more important.”
The raffle will take place on Raffall.com and is set to run for half a year, with tickets priced at £5 each.
Claire admitted: “It’s a lot of money to spend – and the treatment might not be successful in Germany. If it doesn’t work, I might think, ‘gosh, why did we do that?’, but you just don’t know until you try these things. I want to live and see my children grow up.”
A fundraising campaign to support Claire’s treatment has already amassed more than £23,000.