Sophie's Brain Tumour Recovery Fund

This is Sophie, a paediatric nurse and a person that epitomises the character Little Miss Sunshine.

Sophie has dedicated her life to training and working as the most phenomenal Children's nurse, and in recent years has also become a lecturer at Middlesex University training our future nurses with the most incredible care, passion and love for the nursing profession. She even started creating beautiful patchwork quilts while she was working in Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care to keep the babies and young sick children warm and cosy - hence where the name 'Sozies Cozies' grew from (She has her own page on Instagram! :-).

Sophie and her wife Orla both took centre stage during the pandemic, working tirelessly in Intensive Care as nurses, often at the expense of their own well-being due to the traumas they witnessed during that time.

They were planning on taking a couple of months off work to recouperate and planned a trip to travel around South America. For several months before they were due to take off on their adventure, Sophie was having severe migraines, numbness in her face and quite severe anxiety, something completely alien to Sophie's sunny disposition personality.

Their trip together couldn't happen because sadly, about 2 weeks before Christmas, their lives got turned upside down when they received the devastating news that Sophie was found to have a significantly large brain tumour.

A few weeks later, Sophie underwent a biopsy from the tumour which confirmed that she had a Trigeminal Nerve Schwannoma, a rare brain tumour. Though thankfully a benign brain tumour, it sill required aggressive management due to the sheer size of it, encroaching on many key important structures in her brain, and eroding the bone that forms part of her orbit and skull.

Two weeks ago, she underwent a 10 hour operation at Queens Square National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in London to remove the brain tumour. She suffered a major haemorrhage at the end of the 10 hour operation and subsequently had to have another procedure to try to stop the bleeding. She was kept intubated in Intensive Care, and required more surgery the following day. Following this she had a further two week stay in hospital for more procedures and treatments due to various complications.

Thankfully, a significant amount of the tumour has been removed, but some of the tumour remains and Sophie will need ongoing regular monitoring with scans and more than likely will require Gamme Knife Radiotherapy treatment in the coming months.

This experience has completely turned Sophie & Orla's lives upside down, just 18 months after getting married. Sophie still suffers with daily intractable migraines and anxiety, something we hope will improve with time.

Sophie's dream is to one day get well enough to return to the career she loves, working as a paediatric nurse and training future nurses, but there is a long road ahead for her before she can return to this demanding and (frustratingly underpaid!!) profession.

The strain this has had on them both emotionally, physically and financially is devastating.

The aim of this page is to provide them with some support to help with her recovery over the next year, such as living expenses, counselling and any other medical needs Sophie may have going forward.

Based on Sophie's recent experience, Sophie realised the power of alternative therapies such as yoga in helping to relieve anxiety and stress during difficult times. In true Sophie fashion of wanting to help others, her other dream is to become a fully qualified yoga instructor, so that she can one day help others during their journeys. Although the neurosurgeons have advised Sophie that she currently cannot practice any yoga due to the nature of her surgery, we are hopeful that this is something she can pursue in the future and some of the funds from this page will hopefully help make that dream a reality.

Thank you for taking the time to read Sophie's story, and from the bottom of our hearts, any donation is greatly appreciated and will go a long way to helping Sophie & Orla through this difficult time.

With gratitude

xxx

Louise & Aisling (Orla's sisters, Sophie's Sister-in-Laws)