When Lachlan Lindsay was eight, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Surgeons acted quickly and he made a good recovery.<\/p>\n
It was a painful experience for Lachlan and a worrying time for his family back home in Stonehaven, but one they hoped never to repeat.<\/p>\n
Six years later, Lachlan’s younger cousin Hazel Dempster, who lives in Kirkcudbright, began suffering from worrying headaches and her GP referred her for a scan.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Imagine if we both had a brain tumour,\u00a0\u00bb he joked in a phone call to reassure her ahead of her first MRI.<\/p>\n
Within days, the 12-year-old was undergoing emergency neurosurgery to drain fluid from her brain caused by a growth bigger than a golf ball.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0It was a massive shock because the likelihood of [two cousins having brain tumours] is so miniscule,\u00a0\u00bb said Hazel, now 16.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0But I think I’ve probably got a closer relationship with Lachlan now because it’s something me and him can relate to that practically nobody else in our life can.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Both teenagers are now living with their tumours as neither can be removed by surgeons due to their position in the brain.<\/p>\n
Their conditions are not known to be genetically linked – and they say it’s just \u00ab\u00a0bad luck\u00a0\u00bb that it has hit their family twice.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0To be honest, we just joke about it… I don’t know if it’s a coping mechanism,\u00a0\u00bb Hazel, who is studying for her Highers at Kirkcudbright Academy, told BBC Scotland News.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0To me, having a brain tumour is just part of me, it’s not something big or that big a deal. It’s just part of me, it’s like my arm, my leg, my brain tumour.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Hazel has an optic chiasm pilocytic astrocytoma – a slow-growing tumour which presses on her optic nerve and affects her vision.<\/p>\n
Since that first surgery following a blue-light ambulance trip to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, she has had six further operations.<\/p>\n
The schoolgirl also endured gruelling chemotherapy which caused a catalogue of side effects, including prolonged nerve pain which affected the way she walked and her ability to use her fingers.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0It feels like you’re wearing big winter gloves every day, all the time so you can’t actually feel what you’re doing like zips and buttons and laces on your shoes.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
A lowered immunity meant she had to be careful to avoid picking up infections, and she missed out on normal childhood experiences.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I went to a trampoline birthday party in Carlisle and I just had to sit in the cafe because I wasn’t allowed to go on the trampolines,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
Now she takes a daily oral chemotherapy which enables her to lead a relatively normal life – interspersed with regular medical appointments.<\/p>\n
After several years of medically-enforced staycations, the family managed to travel abroad last summer for an ambitious rail trip across Europe.<\/p>\n
Hazel also aced her National 5 exams, and as a young leader with her local Scout troop she was recognised by the Chief Scout with an Unsung Hero award.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I don’t really think about what I do, you know, going to Scout camps on treatment and having to take meds in a tent before I go out,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I don’t think of any of it as anything special, it’s just sort of my life. It’s just how I go about things, what I do. But it’s nice that people see it as something else, something bigger.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Her tumour will not shrink – but it remains stable.<\/p>\n
Having spent so much time on the Schiehallion ward at Glasgow’s children’s hospital, she knows others who have not survived their illnesses.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I’m enjoying and savouring feeling well because I know what it’s like to not to,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Lachlan, now a first year student at the University of Aberdeen, tries not to think about his tumour – a relatively rare one called a tectal plate glioma.<\/p>\n
A scan detected the benign mass on his brain after he developed a slight squint and suffered occasional painful headaches.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I remember being taking to hospital. I remember the first ever MRI I had. I remember the diagnosis. I remember being told that I had a tumour and the hydrocephalus [fluid build-up] at the back of my head could kill me if it wasn’t treated,\u00a0\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
His mum Claire insists he was not given the news quite so bluntly.<\/p>\n
The following day they were sent to the old Sick Kids’ Hospital in Edinburgh where he had emergency surgery to remove fluid build-up from his brain.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I woke up [from operation] and I experienced the worst pain I have ever felt in my life and nothing else has ever come close since,\u00a0\u00bb the 19-year-old said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0It was days before I could properly turn my head because of how much it hurt to do so. That was one of the lowest points of my entire life.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I remember waking up that evening in the ward, and mum wasn’t there because she had gone to the accommodation, and just looking around and thinking – oh my god, where am I? What’s going on? That was terrifying.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
He says the tumour has given him dyspraxia – a condition affecting physical co-ordination – and his \u00ab\u00a0processing speed\u00a0\u00bb has slowed.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Sometimes I will take longer to understand a question in a test because the tumour holds me back,\u00a0\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0My full potential is always going to be less than what it could have been if this wasn’t there. Sometimes that does really upset me.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
But he added: \u00ab\u00a0I’ve managed to do pretty well for myself in spite of my limitations.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Now studying English and Film & Visual Culture, he has dreams of becoming a Hollyood film director.<\/p>\n
The cousins’ aunt, Emma Christie, is among family members affected by Lachlan and Hazel’s life-changing diagnosis.<\/p>\n
An author, she has raised more than \u00a33,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity while promoting her latest crime thriller.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I’ve often felt helpless in the face of such a life-changing diagnosis but by supporting the charity and helping to raise funds for research, I feel like I’m transforming the grief into positive action,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Lachlan Lindsay was eight, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Surgeons acted quickly and he made a good recovery. It was a painful experience for Lachlan and a worrying time for his family back home in Stonehaven, but one they hoped never to repeat. Six years later, Lachlan’s younger cousin Hazel Dempster, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}