‘I was wide awake for the operation on my brain’

Alex Drummond tells Alice-Azania Jarvis of her life-changing tumour surgery

(David Sandison)

We were on holiday in the south of France. Earlier that day I had been in the pool. Thank goodness it didn't happen then – I would have drowned. It was late in the afternoon. I was lying down having a rest before dinner and suddenly, I threw myself off the bed. I can't remember any of it; thankfully my husband was there. The floor was marble and I hit my face on the bedside table. I had given myself a black eye, and – without knowing it – I was on the floor having an epileptic fit. At one stage I stopped breathing.

My husband had seen someone fit before but he knew I wasn't epileptic. He called a doctor, who recommended an ambulance to go the nearest hospital in Nice. When I got there they immediately gave me a CT ("Cat") scan since I had no history of this happening. And then they said that I had a tumour – a large tumour – in my brain.

I really can't remember much about any of this. I was in three different hospitals within five days. I suppose it was just my way of coping – or perhaps my body had been through so many traumas that I was too drained to react much. I was very, very calm. Cool, calm and collected. Looking back, I think the people around me must have been quite surprised. My father had died of cancer not long before, which played a role. It is so devastating, watching someone who you love so much go through that when you can't do anything to help. If it's you going through something, it's different. You can cope. Everyone deals with these things in different ways, but I was very pragmatic. I managed to stay positive.

Our doctors were really good and offered me surgery in France. But we thought that, with something so serious, it would be better to go somewhere where we all spoke the same mother tongue. So we decided to go back to the UK and find out who the best surgeon would be. Kevin O'Neill was recommended and he turned out to be wonderful.

The remarkable thing was that I'd had absolutely no sign of it. People complain of headaches, of nausea but I had nothing. The doctors think that the tumour had been growing inside me for some time, but they don't know precisely for how long. The only thing I wonder about is the time, when I was 12, that I started having migraines. It happened every day for months though I grew out of it. I still don't know if that was the tumour or if it was entirely unrelated.

Kevin explained that, because the tumour was near the talking part of my brain, I would have to be awake while they operated. My husband would have to come in to talk to me to make sure they didn't remove my ability to speak. Everyone else seemed shocked; I just didn't register. I guess I thought he was joking. In fact the truth didn't dawn on me until the final moments before the operation. "I'll speak to you inside," Kevin said as he headed into the operating theatre. I was lying there, having said goodbye to my mother, trying to be brave and strong, and then I just burst into tears. It hit me that I really would be awake.

The anaesthetists were truly amazing. They put me under a general anaesthetic but then managed to rouse me so that I felt totally awake, except I suppose they must have left a local anaesthetic in place around my brain. As I came round I opened my eyes and saw my husband. He had all the clothes on: the surgeon's baggy trousers, the boots and the hat. I just said to him: "You look like a doctor." It must have been a relief. He had been so worried about it all – imagine seeing your wife surrounded by blood and having her brain cut into – but we chatted normally, as if we were in a café.

The whole thing took about five or six hours, and then I was in intensive care. The doctors had used a new kind of technology on me – a kind of imaging stick from Norway called a Sonowand – which allowed them to identify which cells were cancerous and which weren't. Without the Sonowand, it wouldn't have been clear to the naked eye since the type of tumour I had was integrated with healthy cells. There was no apparent differentiation. As well as being a neurosurgeon, Kevin worked in plastic surgery. He hadn't even had to shave my head. I'd always had long hair, so he took as little off as possible – it just looked like a little parting. You can't see my scar at all.

After a week in hospital, I was preparing to leave and Kevin asked me if I had any plans for the weekend. As it happened, I did: I was going to the Henley Regatta, which perhaps isn't the first thing you think of doing when you get out of hospital. He mentioned that he had never been, and suddenly I said: "Well, why don't you come with us?" He brought along his fiancée and we had a lovely day out. In many ways, I couldn't have asked for a better person to be there. If something happened, he'd be right on hand.

We went on to become great friends. He gave me his mobile number and if I ever needed anything, he was on hand. Now I am on the board of trustees for the Brain Tumour Research Campaign; Kevin is the chair. It was founded by Wendy Fulcher, whose husband, John, had died from brain cancer. Kevin hadn't been able to save him, but he had given him some extra time which – as I know from my father's experience – means so, so much.

We try to raise awareness and funds by holding events. We have a lovely ball each year where lots of generous people donate prizes for raffles and auctions. The thing people don't realise is that brain cancer kills more children than any other type of cancer – even leukaemia. It kills more men under 45 – and more women under 35 – than any other cancer, and yet it remains terribly underfunded and very few people know much about it.

It has been three years since my operation and so much has changed. Initially I went for a lot of checkups but now it is just one scan every six months. I'm not sure what my risk of relapsing would be – presumably higher than someone who hadn't had cancer – but it isn't something I dwell on. I had to take six months off work – I was working in wealth management – but when I returned I realised it wasn't the right thing for me. It's funny: that can happen. You become aware of your mortality and decide what you really want to do.

I have dreams of moving abroad, somewhere without the long winter which we have here. My mother lives in Spain but the place that I always think about is America. In the meantime, and while I'd love to work at the charity full time, I do need an income. So my husband and I decided to buy a house and renovate it. It started with us putting a new surface in and then, before we knew it, we had decided to do the whole thing. It became a real project for us. And property was what my father's business was and so, in a way, it felt like I was meant to do it all along.