Hi guys a short while ago our good friend was diagnosed with a horrendous brain tumour in the form of glioblastoma I’ll add a bit about the condition further on. however a bit about Aidan. Aidan is a great man , a hard working family man who has four lovely kids Niamh , Shea Erin and Senan. Aidan can make just about anyone laugh and light up any room he enters and some how is still capable to do this even though he’s going through a lot at the moment. We’ve known Aidan a short while now and consider our families to be friends. Our boys play football together and this news has hit all of us hard but more so hit Aidan , Lisa and the kids much harder. Aidan had recently started a new job so had not completed his probationary period so therefore isn’t entitled to company sick pay etc just statutory sick pay and there is medication with glowing reviews out there but this doesn’t come cheap so myself and mark will be walking the length of hadrians wall to raise some funds for Aidan and the family to help towards this or towards helping them however they see fit to do so.

Now for the ugly part - glioblastoma

Glioblastomas are grade 4 brain tumours. Grade 4 is based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) grading system. Grade 1 and 2 tumours are usually not cancerous and can grow quite slowly. But grade 3 and 4 tumours are more advanced.

They:

grow quickly

are diffuse, which means they have tendrils that reach into other parts of the brain

are likely to spread within the brain

can come back, even if they’ve been treated

are sometimes called malignant or cancerous.

GBMs are a type of glioma, which is a brain tumour that grows from a glial cell. This is where the term, ‘glioblastoma’ comes from. The ‘multiforme’ comes from the fact that they have lots of variations, or different forms. This can unfortunately make them more difficult to treat than other tumours.

These tumours form from cells called astrocytes, which are there to support nerve cells.