A 31-year-old mother has said she and her family were “shocked” after she was diagnosed with a brain tumour just eight weeks after giving birth to her third child.
Alannah Moran, from Co Wicklow, is undergoing chemotherapy following two surgeries to remove the tumour last year. She is also spearheading a push to raise funds for specialist MRI scanner for Beaumont Hospital to help with neurosurgeries.
Ms Moran and her partner have three children, who are aged four, two and nine months.
She said she first began to feel unwell during March 2020, when she was pregnant with her first child, suffering from migraines and anxiety.
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She and doctors put the symptoms down to pregnancy and possibly the Covid-19 pandemic, with nothing irregular showing up in tests.
She went on to give birth to her second child in February 2022 and her third in April 2024, but continuing to not feel like herself and suffering from severe migraines and fatigue.
In June 2024, she woke up one morning with sudden vertigo and had to go to St Vincent’s hospital in an ambulance.
“They were going to send me home and my mum said, ‘Something is not right with my daughter, she hasn’t been well for weeks, you need to investigate this further’,” Ms Moran said.
“The fatigue was just something else, I was in bed most of the time. It just wasn’t normal.”
Ms Moran went for a CT scan which found a shadow on her left frontal lobe. Further MRI tests confirmed it was a tumour with doctors estimating it had likely been there for about four years.
She was transferred to Beaumont Hospital and had the tumour removed in July 2024. Further scans revealed there was still some of the tumour left and she was re-operated on last September.
Initial molecular testing confirmed it was a grade two tumour, however subsequent testing showed it was grade three and Ms Moran was referred to the oncology department.
She underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy in the weeks before last Christmas, and is continuing treatment, including oral chemotherapy. Ms Moran is due to return to the hospital in March for a check-up scan, and will continue to attend for scans over the coming months.
“I feel fine, I’m troopering on,” Ms Moran said. “That’s all you can do, one foot in front of the other and taking one day at a time.
“If I didn’t have my kids to keep me going, I don’t know where I would be. I just need to get through this year and hopefully that will be it and I’ll be looking back in 15 or 20 years' time with no recurrence. At the end of the day, life isn’t guaranteed.”
Ms Moran and her mother Elaine are organising fundraisers to help secure an intraoperative MRI scanner for Beaumont Hospital, as well as two surgical robots, which would help with neurosurgeries. She would also like to see more awareness and research around brain tumours.
“Everyone was shocked when I got the diagnosis,” Ms Moran said. “I was healthy and keep myself well. There was nothing you could pinpoint it to, it was just one of those things.
“There’s not enough awareness around it. Had I known the things to watch out for that I know now, I would have 100 per cent got myself looked at but I was completely unaware of any symptoms you should look out for.
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“When the doctor came in and told me, I was in shock, I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s something in my brain’ ... The area is so underfunded. For a lot of people, it’s found when it’s too late. I feel like I owe my life to [Prof] Donncha [O’Brien], my neurosurgeon. I’m very grateful and I’m in a good position, because it could have been worse.”
Ms Moran also said juggling three young children and her current health problems has been “difficult, but you can’t change it”.
“You kind of just have to get on with it. I’ve a lot of family support around me, so I’m very lucky in that regard.”
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