Student fights brain tumour to graduate

Mohammed Hussain, from Oldham, was joined by his family to receive his 2:1 degree in Business and Economics at a ceremony today at the Lowry Theatre in Salford Quays.

Mohammed said that his faith, as well as the support of his family and friends, had got him through his ordeal and he is now looking to the future, but instead of a career in Economics he now wants to go into counselling to help others who are suffering from health issues.

The 23-year-old started his studies in 2017 and all was going well. But in the middle of the first semester of his final year completely out of the blue he started to develop and suffer from seizures. As a result he went for an MRI scan which eventually revealed he was suffering from a level two tumour in his brain.

Mohammed said: “It was a massive shock obviously, my family were very supportive but I could tell they were shocked too. They told me the tumour had been there for at least four years and its location meant it was affecting my numerical skills, spoken language, right hand control and scientific skills meaning I had to work extra hard to get through my A-Levels to get to university.”

Because of where the tumour was, and how deep it was in the left hand side of my brain, surgeons couldn’t completely remove it, as the risk of damage to the brain was too great. But they did perform surgery to remove as much of it as possible. Mohammed was conscious through different parts the operation and had to repeat words, look at pictures and say what he could see to ensure that he could continue to speak and have no significant repercussions. The operation lasted up to 9 hours to make sure that there was no major damage to brain.

He was in hospital for over four months afterwards to recover and had to undergo radiotherapy to try to kill off the small amount of tumour that could not be removed on top of the brain.

Mohammed said: “I took a year off from my studies initially, but then I started to get more seizures throughout the year. The doctors had to alter my medication so I ended up taking two years out to build up my stamina before I could start to study again.

Mohammed also said that: “My faith helped me through everything, I never lost hope of recovering and I have never given up throughout my journey so far and will definitely continue throughout my lifetime”.

The experience changed his ambitions in life as he then stated that “I want to go into counselling to help people with any health issues as my experience has had a positive impact in my life” he added.

“My tutor Maria Rana was fantastic, she helped me all the way through, I can’t thank her or the University enough for the support they gave me. It is such a proud moment to be with my family getting my degree after everything that has happened.”