A young businessman had no suspicion that anything was the matter with his health - until he started suffering from confusion, loss of direction and flashing in one of his eyes.
Lee Masters was only 30 and running Ward & Masters Construction, a carpentry and construction business he co-owns with his best friend Marcus Ward when things started to go wrong. After seeking medical assistance he was diagnosed with an inoperable low-grade astrocytoma - the most common type of primary glioma (a growth of cells that starts in the brain or spinal cord) brain tumour in both children and adults.
At first, his symptoms appeared to ease with migraine medication, DevonLive reports. However, a year later in 2018, Lee suffered two seizures within months of each other and a scan confirmed a mass on his brain.
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Lee recalled: “There was a flashing in my left eye, I felt confused and my sense of direction was all off. This continued for a few days and I had to rely on sat nav on my phone to get to places I went to regularly.
“At the time of my first seizure, I was on the phone to my girlfriend, Helen. I didn’t feel right so took myself to my van, sat down and I passed out, hanging up the call with Helen.
"She managed to phone my business partner who asked a colleague on site to check on me and they found me rooting around the tools in the back of my van. My second seizure happened in front of Helen during a holiday together in Malta. This time she was forced to watch as my body fitted for almost two minutes.”
Despite 12 months of PCV chemotherapy - a combination of chemotherapy drugs - Lee’s tumour continued to grow. After a biopsy in November 2020, his tumour was reclassified as a grade three which defines tumours that grow more quickly and are more difficult to treat.
He received radiotherapy followed by another year of chemotherapy which he completed in August 2022. A scan at the beginning of October showed Lee’s tumour was stable.
Lee's gruelling brain cancer journey has inspired him to urge the government to invest more money into researching the disease, and he has also become an avid fundraiser. Over the last three years, Lee and his family have raised more than £5,000 for the charity Brain Tumour Research by taking part in their own Walk of Hope.
Every September the charity organises a Walk of Hope to raise money in the hope of finding a cure for all types of brain tumours. Lee is now campaigning alongside the charity to help reach 100,000 signatures on its petition to increase research funding, in the hope of prompting a parliamentary debate.
Lee said: “Over the years I’ve researched other treatments and made changes to my lifestyle and diet. I understand that there have been advances in treatment available overseas but it seems outrageous that as well as living with this disease, patients are often self-funding and looking at alternative treatments themselves.”
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