At 40, Leanne was busy building a life with her young family in Sydney. Then, one day, everything changed.
Leanne had never had a seizure before.
She had never had any major health problems. She was 40, working full-time and raising two young children with her husband. After moving from the UK to New Zealand and then to Sydney for work, the family had been enjoying their new life in Australia.
Then, one day in September 2023, Leanne told her husband she wasn’t feeling well.
She drove to daycare to collect their children, but has no memory of doing it. When she arrived home, she walked up the stairs, became violently ill and collapsed.
Then she had a seizure.
Leanne’s husband called an ambulance. Their children, just three and four years old, were there.
“I’d never had a seizure before, never had any health issues, anything. Never ever,” Leanne says.
At St Vincent’s Hospital, doctors discovered that fluid was blocked in Leanne’s brain, causing continuous seizures. She needed emergency surgery to stabilise her condition and a shunt was inserted to drain the fluid.
Leanne was placed in an induced coma.
Doctors told her family they didn’t know if she would survive.
Then, against the odds, Leanne woke up.
She had no idea what had happened.
“They said, ‘We found a mass on the brain.’ I was so out of it, I was like, ‘What’s a mass?’”
Within a week, surgeons operated. They took a biopsy, but they couldn’t remove the tumour because of where it was located.
Then came the diagnosis.
At first, Leanne was told she had grade 4 oligodendroglioma and approximately six to 18 months to live.
The news immediately changed the way she looked at her life.
“I just thought, no funeral care. Never even thought about a funeral. Haven’t got a will yet. My kids, money, my husband… What happens with the kids? All of it. It was just so overwhelming.”
Leanne
It gave her time.
Time to process what had happened. Time to undergo treatment. Time to keep working. Time to raise her children.
Leanne had six weeks of radiotherapy, followed by 12 months of chemotherapy.
She continued working throughout treatment and tried to maintain the things that mattered to her, including exercise.
But treatment was brutal.
There were days when she was so sick from chemotherapy that she could barely function. She would spend hours feeling nauseous, then force herself to go for a walk.
She describes that period as survival mode.
“You just become that. You just know to the point, the day you’re starting, pills come out, away you go. Then, obviously you recover.”
Surviving isn’t the same as getting your life back
Today, Leanne is still working full-time and raising her children.
Her hair has grown back. She exercises every day. She is looking ahead to buying a family home and building a future in Australia.
But life after brain cancer is not the same as life before it.
Leanne now lives with significant fatigue and sensitivity to noise and light. Crowded places can feel overwhelming. The playgrounds and busy environments she once enjoyed with her children can now be difficult.
She wears noise-cancelling headphones regularly.
“I used to go out all the time, but I’m too tired. By 7:00, 7:30, I’m in bed.”
And then there are the scans.
For now, Leanne is scanned every few months to monitor for any sign that the cancer has returned.
The days before a scan bring intense anxiety.
“You have to think positive, you have to be positive, you have to be positive for the people around you as well. But it is really hard to be in the mindset of… you’re living three months by three months.”
Leanne
For Leanne, survival isn’t simply about being alive.
It is about having the energy to be there for her children. Being able to work. Going to the places she loves. Hearing music. Taking her kids to the playground. Making plans without constantly wondering what the next scan will bring.
It is about having a future she can actually live.
“I didn’t even know it existed”
Before her diagnosis, Leanne knew very little about brain cancer.
She says she had heard plenty about other cancers, but brain cancer was not something she had ever thought about.
“I never heard of anyone having it, ever.”
That lack of awareness was one of the things that struck her after her diagnosis.
So did the lack of treatment options.
Leanne is grateful for the medical team who treated her and for the treatment that has given her more time. But she is also realistic about the limitations of what is currently available.
When asked whether research is where she pins her hopes, her answer is blunt.
“No. Because they haven’t found anything yet.”
For Leanne, research isn’t an abstract idea. It is the difference between having the same treatment options available if her cancer returns and having new options to consider.
It is the possibility that one day, someone diagnosed with brain cancer won’t be told to prepare for the worst.
And it is the possibility of making sure that the extra years people gain are not simply years of living scan to scan, dealing with the lasting effects of treatment and wondering what comes next.
Looking forward
Leanne doesn’t pretend she has all the answers.
She doesn’t know what the future holds. She knows that brain cancer can return. She knows there are things she may never be able to do in quite the same way again.
But she is still making plans.
She wants to buy a family home. She wants to watch her children grow up. She wants to move forward.
“I just want to live my life again, as best as I can.”
That is why better research matters.
Because for people like Leanne, progress isn’t only about finding a cure, important as that is.
It is about developing treatments that work better. Extending survival. Reducing the lasting impact of treatment. Improving quality of life. And giving people diagnosed with brain cancer more time to live the lives they had planned.
Leanne’s diagnosis may have changed her life in ways she never expected.
But she is still here.
Still working. Still exercising. Still raising her children. Still making plans for the future.
And she wants that future to be longer.
