“I went to the hospital for food poisoning… It was a tumor that had been growing inside me for 30 years”

Suffering from food poisoning is an unsavory experience which, in addition to being painful, can be very dangerous in the absence of appropriate care. Indeed, depending on the form it takes, a patient is likely to be subject to complications such as being subject to dehydration which is risky for health. But in certain cases, it can prove to be saving in an indirect way at least.

This is the astonishing experience that a mother shared, on March 29, 2024, in the columns of New York Post. The scene takes place on the other side of the Atlantic, more particularly in Saint-Brieuc, a commune in Brittany, where the events took place in July 2019. At the time, Theresa Hardwick, a mother 58-year-old family member, decided to spend a vacation on the Breton coast alongside her family.

“There were no warning signs”

Staying in Brittany, the family was tempted by tasting a dish of mussels. A dish which unfortunately did not have the expected effect since it is likely to be the cause of the deterioration in the state of health of the mother who, in addition to having vomited several times , displayed incoherent speech. It didn’t take much for her husband to rush her to the hospital.

Apparently suffering from food poisoning, Theresa Hardwick went to the Saint Brieuc Hospital Center before being transferred to St. Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, United Kingdom. There, the mother of two suffered an epileptic seizure and that’s when doctors discovered a low-stage tumor inside her brain, which had been growing for 30 years. What was his surprise when he discovered the doctors’ diagnosis. “There were no warning signs before I got sick from food poisoning”, she declared.

“I feel lucky”

And to add: “If I had never been sick, my tumor might not have been discovered yet. Doctors think my brain was shaken by the effects of the food poisoning,” she confided. The good news for the mother is that the brain tumor discovered by doctors was not cancerous. It was therefore able to be removed during a surgical operation which took place correctly in August 2019. An event for which Theresa Hardwick said she was very grateful.

Indeed, until this food poisoning revealed that she was suffering from a brain tumor, she could never have imagined being the subject of such a diagnosis. “I feel lucky that my tumor was able to be operated on and I am now monitored with regular brain scans”, she confided. The mother was also able to count on the support of her family during this ordeal: her 25-year-old daughter decided to climb Kilimanjaro to raise funds for medical research into tumors.

A journalist passionate about social issues and current affairs, Hugo puts his pen at the service of information. Interested in all themes, from the impact of artificial intelligence on…