Ben, then 21, was rushed to hospital where he got the real diagnosis
Ben thoiught his problem was down to alcohol
A man who thought he had the ‘worst hangover’ passed out at his university home and was rushed to hospital – before being diagnosed with a brain tumour – at 21. Ben Cornfoth was feeling ill, and when he went to go the toilet he collapsed – then told his girlfriend he was having trouble speaking.
Ben, from Birmingham, was at university in Nottingham at the time. He said: “I was just at home watching TV with my uni housemates one Friday night when suddenly I couldn’t follow what was happening on the show and couldn’t speak. I felt totally out of it and dizzy. When I went to the toilet, the room felt like it was spinning and I fell over.
“I lived with my girlfriend at the time, so I said to her, ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but I can’t talk’. But I was speaking slowly and I wasn’t coherent. I was also mixing up words.
“At first, I tried to hide the issues because I’d been drinking the night before, so I thought I was just having the worst hangover possible.”
Ben’s friends spotted his speech issues and became concerned he was having a stroke, causing them to call 111. Ben was taken to hospital by ambulance, where he was told that he’d have to stay the night following a CT scan.
The now 24-year-old said: “When we were called into a room, I was told there was something on my brain that wasn’t supposed to be there. Doctors suspected it was a cyst, so I called my parents so they could travel up to Nottingham – it was really difficult having to phone my mum to tell her what had happened.
“I had an MRI two days later.”
Two weeks later, Ben was told he had a benign tumour on his language centre, which had caused the speech issues during his suspected seizure. He was told the tumour had likely been there for most of his life and that the safest thing to do was to leave it.
He added: “The fact it was always there didn’t make a massive difference; it was just good news at this point, given how bad it could have been.”
Ben was given anti-seizure medication and went back to university to try and carry on with life as normal – but he soon suffered two more seizures. A follow-up scan revealed activity in the tumour and he would need brain surgery. In May 2023, Ben underwent a six-hour craniotomy surgery, a procedure where a portion of the skull is temporarily removed to access the brain – during which he had to be awake.
He said: “They said they’d take as much of the tumour as possible, but they couldn’t take anything off my brain, so they got as close to the brain as they could. They would prod a piece of the tumour with the logic that if I stopped talking, they couldn’t cut that.
“They explained they’d do a biopsy on it afterwards. The surgery took five to six hours and I was asleep for the first part when they were preparing to take the tumour out and then I was woken up and was conscious for two hours.
“When they were reattaching the piece of my skull and sewing me up, they gave me the option to go back to sleep but I stayed awake.” Ben said he suffered from side effects after the surgery, including being unable to read or watch TV as he “couldn’t follow what was going on”.
He also struggled with conversations and frequently asked people to repeat themselves, though doctors assured him all the issues were normal and they subsided after a week. However, two weeks after surgery, Ben’s biopsy results revealed he had stage 4 brain cancer and he would need six weeks of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
It wasn’t until he moved to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, to be closer to his family, that Ben really understood the severity of his cancer. He added: “I was told I was in grade four, but I didn’t really understand what that meant until my meeting at QE.”
After six weeks of combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment, Ben also had a year of daily chemotherapy tablets. He said: “My whole process going through treatment and with recovery was to always have things as normal as possible.
“I know I’ll need more treatment in future, but for now I am off treatment and feeling happy and healthy. I try to make the most of every day.”
Ben has since joined Teenage Cancer Trust’s Youth Advisory Group which helps to shape the support provided to young people. He also recently completed the London Marathon, raising more than £10,000 for the charity that helped him during and after treatment.
Ben added: “After being diagnosed, I would have never imagined I could have done it, but it felt incredible at the end. I think the reaction from my friends and family made me feel proud I’d been able to finish.
“I think because being active has been just a big part of dealing with my diagnosis, it felt like a celebration day of the whole last three years with all of my friends and family. It also felt so much better doing things through the charity and knowing how the money will now be spent rather than just running myself.
“I wanted to run and fundraise for Teenage Cancer Trust because of my own experiences but also because being a part of the Youth Advisory Group has reinforced to me how important the charity is and the value in the work they do.”
To donate to Ben’s fundraising page, visit: Benjamin Cornforth is fundraising for Teenage Cancer Trust
