'It felt like my brain was coming out of my skull'

"It felt like my brain was coming out of my skull."

Tom Shaw was 24 when he began suffering from extreme headaches. But as a self-employed person who had recently bought a house he felt he "couldn't afford to be ill".

However, as his symptoms worsened Mr Shaw, from Stafford, visited the doctors on seven occasions before he was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2007.

Now 41, the tumour has gone but it has left him unable to walk or speak. He has written a book based on his experiences and in the hope of encouraging people to not ignore early warning signs that something might be wrong.

He started writing a blog in 2010 but said he became disheartened when he realised not many people read it.

He decided to turn his story into a book - "Brain Tumours, John Bonham and Fat Pigeons", inspired by the people and experiences he encountered while in hospital, including a recurring hallucination where he thought there was a shrine to a John Bonham next to his bed.

"The book is a tale to stop other people from making the same mistakes," he said.

After feeling unwell for the entire duration of a holiday to Turkey he finally went to the doctor.

An MRI scan showed he had a low-grade hemangioblastoma, he was admitted to hospital and thought " this is it, it's probably the end".

"I was playing through the words 'we've found something' and thinking I should be reacting to this," he said.

The operation to remove the tumor, which took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, lasted 13 hours and left him in a wheelchair, unable to speak.

He was was later transferred to a specialist rehabilitation centre, Haywood Community Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, where he spent eight months recovering from the surgery, as well as learning to speak again.

He said the process had been "incredibly frustrating" as he was also diagnosed with a condition called ataxia, which which affects coordination and mobility.

He added: "If you think that there is something abnormal there, don't ignore it, it won't go away".

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