In early April my GP referred me for an MRI of my brain, after I had noticed I’d become quite forgetful.

After 25 years of getting knocks to the head playing rugby, and then reading ex-England rugby player Steve Thompson’s book, I thought getting checked was the right thing to do.

The day after my MRI scan, as I was checking in to the hotel for my 14 year old sons rugby tour, the GP called. They told me, you have no brain injury, but you do have a brain tumor!

It was a terrible shock and the most difficult weekend.

After further testing we now know that I have a very rare tumor called a subependymoma, it’s so rare the dr’s need a specialist to help me understand what the future holds. All signs are that my tumour is non-cancerous, which is a huge relief but the plan moving forward is still unknown.

We are now almost 3 months post MRI, and I'm still not 100% sure of the severity, my options or what this means for me and my family. To say there have been a lot of sleepless nights is an understatement!

There are a long list of symptoms; loss of grip strength, memory loss and anger/shortness of temper are a few. Due to this I have had to step back from coaching my sons U14’s rugby team, who I have coached since the boys were 5 years old, this has been devastating!

So what am I going to do about it? I've decided to swim the equivalent of the english channel (1344 lengths of a 25m pool) to raise some funds and awareness for a charity Brain Trust who support people living with brain tumours and they’re families. I will be splitting any donations/sponsorship 50-50 between the charity and North Bristol U15’s 2024 tour fund.

I won’t be able to do this alone or in one attempt, so it will be a accumulative effort over a week. The North Bristol U14’s will be helping me, swimming everyday for a week until we reach France!

Any donation will be gratefully received, all my thanks, Nigel