Brain cancer patient prepares for Wear A Hat Day shenanigans

Tianna Davies, from Northampton, had been suffering with severe headaches and was initially misdiagnosed with migraines before having her grade 3 ependymoma discovered in March 2023.

The 24-year-old’s father, Hector Gregersen, said: “This time last year, Tianna was experiencing lots of headaches, and they were getting progressively worse. When she told us she could no longer bear the pain, we knew it must have been bad.

“Her doctor kept telling us she was suffering from migraines, but Tianna is tough and was telling us something was wrong, so we decided to pay for her to see a private neurologist.

“He looked in her eyes and within five minutes said: ‘there’s something there, you need to go to A&E’.

“The neurosurgeon we saw after her tumour was discovered told us there would be only two outcomes if she wasn’t operated on, paralysis because of the size of it and, ultimately, death.”

Tianna, a mortgage administrator for Nationwide Building Society, underwent two debulking surgeries followed by seven weeks of proton beam therapy and will now be monitored with regular scans.

Hector, also from Northampton, said: “Tianna hasn’t long been back from proton beam therapy, which started in January. She lost her hair over the course of two weeks and decided to shave the rest of it off, but otherwise she coped really well.

“She’s back home with us now, but it has been a tough year. The only word I can use to describe it is ‘trauma’ because we were being hit by one thing after another and it seemed never-ending.”

The 44-year-old added: “Tianna’s the youngest of our three children, and our only girl, so it’s been really difficult watching everything she’s had to go through, but she’s been amazing. How she’s managed to stay so strong is beyond me but she’s always been a tough cookie.”

In recognition of everything Tianna has been through and in an effort to help improve the situation for future brain tumour patients, Hector has organised a Wear A Hat Day event at Nationwide’s Weston Favell branch, where he is the manager.

Hesaid: “It's still very raw for us but we want to play our part so that other families won’t have to go through what we have. My team at Weston Favell has been very supportive of the difficult year we’ve had and is keen to get involved in this too.

“As well as paying to wear hats, we’ll be holding a raffle and a cake sale, which I hope will go some way towards helping the shocking underinvestment in brain tumour research.

“I will be wearing a grey Brain Tumour Research hat. My wife, Caroline, has a pink one and Tianna will be joining us in a beanie hat that looks like a brain – she hasn’t lost her sense of humour.”

Wear A Hat Day is the Brain Tumour Research charity’s flagship fundraiser and has raised more than £2 million since being launched in 2010.

Held at the end of Brain Tumour Awareness Month, the event asks people to don their favourite hats, hold hat-themed events and make donations to help find a cure for brain tumours. It will take place this year on Thursday 28 March.

Hector said: “It was on 28 March last year that we saw the neurologist, so we’re excited about being to being able to celebrate Wear A Hat Day a year on.”

Charlie Allsebrook, community development manager for Brain Tumour Research, said: “With one in three people knowing someone affected by a brain tumour, Tianna’s story is, sadly, not unique. Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to brain tumours since records began in 2002.

“We’re determined to change that but we can’t do it alone. We’re really grateful to Hector and his team for supporting Wear A Hat Day and would encourage anyone wanting to get involved to register at www.wearahatday.org. Together we will find a cure.”

Brain Tumour Research funds sustainable research at dedicated centres in the UK. It also campaigns for the Government and larger cancer charities to invest more in research into brain tumours in order to speed up new treatments for patients and, ultimately, to find a cure. The charity is the driving force behind the call for a national annual spend of £35 million in order to improve survival rates and patient outcomes in line with other cancers such as breast cancer and leukaemia.

To support Hector’s fundraising, go to www.justgiving.com/page/hector-gregersen-1709738632787.