Firefighter Paul Whitaker (42) suffered from unbearable dizziness and fainting spells for several months. Doctors initially thought his symptoms were caused by heart problems. However, they soon discovered that the cause was an aggressive brain tumor that was growing very quickly. , after an unexpected diagnosis, they gave him a very poor prognosis.
- Englishman Paul Whitaker had been suffering from weakness and dizziness for months.
- Initially, doctors diagnosed him with heart failure, which delayed treatment.
- Doctors eventually determined that the cause of his symptoms was an aggressive brain tumor.
- Father underwent surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy to shrink the tumor.
- Currently, Paul is trying to raise funds for treatment that could extend his life.
A bad diagnosis delayed treatment
Paul began to feel immense weakness in 2023, in which he often thought he would fall away. In June, he decided to see his doctor, who assumed he had heart problems. That diagnosis ended up being wrong, which experts only realized months later.
The condition of a firefighter from the town of Huntingdon in England took a turn for the worse after his wife Hayley noticed in April 2024 that the left side of his face was drooping. The doctor on the emergency line advised her to take him to the hospital immediately. Doctors in the emergency department suspected that he might be suffering from a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also called a “mini-stroke”..
Not long after, Paul underwent an MRI, which revealed a huge lesion on his brain. Doctors eventually diagnosed him with stage three astrocytoma, an aggressive tumor that most often arises in the central nervous system. He was taken to a hospital in Cambridge, where a craniotomy was performed while he was still conscious and a 42 mm tumor was removed. “They were able to choose 95 percent of the tumor. It cannot be completely removed because some parts of it pass into the brain“, revealed the fireman.
The father of two had to undergo seven weeks of radiotherapy and 12 months of oral chemotherapy after the operation. He and his wife tried to protect their children, eight-year-old Noah and six-year-old Ethan, from the news. “When I started chemotherapy, we had to tell them. I was often tired and lost my appetite. We wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible” added Paul.
The Englishman is currently campaigning to raise awareness of brain tumors, having suffered almost none of the typical symptoms associated with his diagnosis. “I didn’t know anything about brain tumors before. People usually have headaches and seizures because those are the symptoms associated with the condition. If we had caught it earlier, maybe my tumor wouldn’t have grown so much,” he concluded, adding that doctors should have more options for diagnosis.
Dad finished treatment in September and learned that his tumor had shrunk. But because it is an aggressive type of the disease, doctors are worried that it will come back. Paul is therefore trying to raise funds for immunotherapy in the hope that it will prolong his life. “The prognosis is that I will live three to six years. Thanks to treatment, it could double. We hope it will stop the tumor from growing,” concluded a grateful Paul, saying that managed to collect more than 36 thousand pounds.
