According to UNILAD, Sean Sweeney, a 31-year-old man from Doncaster, England, shared how he initially dismissed the early warning signs of an aggressive, incurable brain tumor as routine pain from working out. His experience mirrors other cases where serious symptoms were brushed aside, including one where her pain was dismissed as a woman’s issues before a disease took most of her stomach.
In early 2022, Sweeney began experiencing frequent headaches, muscular pain, and a tingling sensation down the right side of his body. Because he was actively weight training, he assumed the symptoms were related to a neck ligament injury and expected them to resolve on their own.
He sought physiotherapy to treat what he believed was a muscle issue, but after multiple sessions with no improvement, he was discharged without answers. The symptoms persisted, leaving him increasingly frustrated and unsettled as his condition failed to improve.
The symptoms escalated into a medical emergency
Sweeney later told Brain Tumor Research that he struggled to concentrate and felt something was seriously wrong, even though he could not explain it. Those concerns escalated in July 2022, when he suffered a seizure while asleep and was woken by his partner of 12 years, Lucy, who was deeply affected by the incident.
He was taken to the emergency room, where doctors performed a CT scan and discovered a lesion on his brain. A junior doctor later confirmed the finding, leaving Sweeney feeling numb as he processed the news and thought about the impact on his partner and family.
Weeks later, he received a diagnosis of grade three astrocytoma, a fast-growing malignant brain tumor. Shortly after the diagnosis, Sweeney and Lucy decided to get married.
Treatment began with surgery in November 2022, when Sweeney underwent a 10-hour awake craniotomy to remove as much of the tumor as possible. The procedure required extensive psychological preparation and was complicated by an acute stroke during surgery.
Sweeney later shared that he was fortunate to avoid significant long-term effects from the stroke. His experience serves as a reminder of the importance of seeking further medical answers when symptoms persist or worsen over time, even as unrelated viral stories like a man claiming his AI girlfriend broke up with him after he ranted about feminism continue to circulate online.
Published: Jan 9, 2026 06:30 am