She had surgery 10 days later which removed most of the tumour. But it also impacts on those around you and I was holding their hands and telling them that I would be OK.”įurther scans and tests confirmed that the mass was a primary high grade medulloblastoma. In a way, it’s easier when it’s happening to you because you can control it. “My family were sitting next to me and sobbing which was so difficult. Deep down, as I knew that it something bad, when I was actually told that it was cancer, it wasn’t such a huge surprise. The medical teams were all tip toeing around me but in the back of my mind I knew what it was. Harriet said: “No one really tells you what’s happening at that early stage – the word ‘cancer’ isn’t really used. Further scans revealed the mass on Harriet’s brain. On the same day as the scan, the specialist called her and told her to go to Hammersmith A&E by taxi – not the tube. However, with a big family holiday to California coming up, Harriet had an MRI scan carried out privately instead in April. She then went to her GP who prescribed migraine medication and referred her for an MRI scan which was booked for August – a few months away at the time. So, she kept a headache diary to note down what she had eaten each day as well as the activities that she had done. She initially thought that they may be migraines, which run in the family, but she noticed that they got worse when she was moving, lifting things or exercising. In May 2017, Harriet Downing from Surrey was living and working in London when she began having headaches which got progressively worse over the following six months. Speaking to The Brain Tumour Charity during the pandemic in 2020 and ahead of Harriet passing away last August, she and her sister Bea have shared their story and the family’s motivations to help find a cure for the awful disease which tore them apart.Ī young woman who was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was just 27-years-old and has faced grueling treatment ever since has, along with her friends and family, raised over £200,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity to invest in potentially life-changing research.