'Pregnancy made me turn left'
Sunday 7th June 2009
You hear of expectant mums craving all sorts of funny things, don't you? But I'd never heard of anyone getting a craving like the one I was experiencing now, in September 2008. I was six months pregnant, and busy tapping out an email, when I suddenly got the strongest desire to turn left. In fact, it was more than a desire, it was a compulsion, impossible to ignore, an itch I just had to scratch. I swung my head as far as it would go to the left, and instantly felt better. Of course, I knew it was strange. I'd certainly never felt anything like it before. But pregnancy does funny things to you, doesn't it?
With my eldest two, Alice, 3, and William, 2, I'd had a terrible time with gestational diabetes, but this time, I'd managed to control my blood sugar with my diet. So if a craving to turn left was the only strange symptom I had, I'd be happy. A few weeks later, my husband, Andy, 41, and I were watching CSI on the telly, when there it was again, the urgent need to turn my head to the left. 'Are you OK?' Andy frowned, bewildered as I suddenly craned my neck and sighed in relief. 'I am now,' I said. 'I had this the other day. It's like my whole body is screaming at me to turn left. What do you think it means?' 'It means that you're odd,' Andy laughed.
Another few weeks on, on 19 November, I was lying in bed unable to get back to sleep, when the urge struck for a third time. I swung my head left to face Andy, and felt the same sense of relief I'd felt the other two times. Only this time, my left hand started shaking violently. It was really scary. I couldn't control it and I felt hot and faint. 'Andy! Help!' I cried, terrified. I heard him tut in the darkness at being made to get out of bed. Then I passed out. The next thing I knew, I was being lifted into an ambulance, Andy looking down at me. 'You had a fit,' he said shakily. 'You bit your tongue so hard, it bled. Ruby's looking after the kids.' Ruby was our housekeeper. Everyone has one in Hong Kong, where we've lived since Andy was transferred for his job in IT.
Thankfully, tests at Princess Margaret Hospital in Kwai Chung revealed our baby hadn't been harmed by the seizure. But the doctors couldn't explain why it had happened. After two days in hospital, I was referred to a neurologist at the nearby Canossa Hospital for an MRI scan. 'You've got a lesion on your brain,' he explained. 'It's an area which appears abnormal on the scan. Have you had any headaches or unusual symptoms?' 'Just a strong urge to turn left a few times,' I replied. 'Could it be to do with this?' 'Definitely,' the doctor agreed. 'The lesion is on the right side of your brain, so it could be affecting your motor skills on your left side.' I was terrified. Was it a tumour? I'd had a malignant melanoma on my left leg back in 2002, aged 28, but I'd been told I was clear of the cancer in August that same year. Had it come back?
'I'm 36 weeks pregnant,' I sobbed to Andy. 'I can't have a brain tumour.' I couldn't have any more scans while I was still pregnant, so on 28 November, at 37 weeks, I was admitted to the Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam for a Caesarean section. Thankfully, the birth went smoothly, and Maisie arrived a healthy 8lb 2oz. She was gorgeous. But there was hardly any time to enjoy my new baby. I had to stop breastfeeding after four days, because she was allowed home, while I needed more scans. The consultants quickly discovered what was wrong. 'You have two tumours on the right side of your brain,' they explained. 'We won't know if they're cancerous until we've done a biopsy.' Worse, when I went for a second scan on 11 December, the tumours had quickly grown in size. 'It may be down to the pregnancy hormones,' the doctor explained. 'But it means we have to act fast and operate to remove them.'
My hormones were already all over the place from having had a baby, but now I was in despair. I couldn't look at my daughter without bursting into tears. She was perfect in every way. But was I about to die? I felt destroyed at the thought of depriving my little girl of her mum. 'It's too much to cope with,' I sobbed to my own mum, Jill, 61, who'd flown over from the UK. Before I went for surgery, the whole family gathered at my bed. As I hugged Alice, William and Maisie in turn, it felt so unfair. A new mum shouldn't be apart from her baby for even an hour, let alone days. 'I love you,' I cried.
The surgery was a success, but a biopsy on the tumour confirmed it was a malignant melanoma and a scan of the rest of my body showed tumours on my lung and my pelvis. Hadn't I gone through enough? All I wanted was to go home and be with my family. Instead I was stuck in hospital. 'You'll need chemotherapy and radiotherapy but I'm confident we've caught them all in time,' the doctor reassured me. Three weeks later, I was allowed home and I'd never been so happy to see my family. 'Mum's home,' I told Alice and William, grabbing them in my arms before scooping Maisie up for a hug.
Almost six months on, I'm still undergoing chemo but every day, I'm getting stronger and I'm looking to the future with my lovely family. Doctors don't know how long the tumours had been growing inside me but they reckon the pregnancy hormones accelerated the growth. They only came to light because of Maisie. So, in a funny way, she'd saved my life. I'm so grateful to still be here. But I still can't believe my urge to turn left could have been the death of me.