A talented Cornish artist discovered she had brain cancer – after forgetting how to talk.
Leah Jensen, 35, had suffered with headaches and a bad memory for years but dismissed her symptoms.
She thought her headache was due to tiredness, but in 2020, when working a bar shift in South East London, Leah experienced what she thought was a migraine.
Then, she partially lost her vision, failed to understand what people were saying to her, and could only say “um” when asked a question.
An ambulance was called, and Leah, from the clay country, embarked on an eight-month journey which ended with her discovering that she had Grade Three brain cancer.
Leah underwent life-saving surgery to have the tumour removed(Image: Leah Jensen)
Leah, a sculptor and ceramacist who has exhibited in prestigious shows including British Ceramics Biennial, Design Miami and London Design Festival, said: “I was working in a pub in London, between the two lockdowns, when things had opened up a bit, but there were still a lot of restrictions.
“We were doing pints, but with table service and all that stuff.
“I had what I thought was a migraine, but it kept getting worse, then I experienced some weird symptoms with my vision, things started looking pixelated.
“Then I experienced problems with language. I couldn’t understand how to read, then I couldn’t speak – I could only say ‘um’. Then I couldn’t understand people speaking, everything sounded like Peanuts or the Magic Roundabout, so my manager called the ambulance.”
Paramedics raced to the scene and, after checking her vitals, decided to take Leah to Lewisham Hospital, notifying her partner, Mike Clark, on the way.
But Leah was certain that nothing was wrong and that her symptoms were just a blip.
She continued: “I felt mortified, I was really embarrassed in the ambulance, I thought it was a drama over nothing. I waited in A&E for six hours by myself because it was COVID. Mike had to wait outside.
The tumour which gave Leah a seizure(Image: Leah Jensen)
“I kept trying to leave because I was tired and it was mayhem – lots of people in there were really drunk and all cut up. But Mike wouldn’t let me leave; he kept making me go back in.
“They (doctors) scanned me and saw something on my brain. They thought I might have had a stroke, but I was only 30, and that didn’t seem right.
Leah’s view from her hospital bed, stitched onto canvas(Image: Leah Jensen)
“Then at 3am a nurse came in, and she said ‘we think you’ve got a brain tumour’. At that stage, we didn’t know it was cancer.”
Leah knew that she needed an operation to have the mass removed, but she faced an agonising wait as operations were delayed due to the pandemic.
It was 250 days before she finally had the tumour removed.
She continued: “A week after that, I found out it was cancer.
“It was a Grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma. Grade 4 is the worst, so what I had was a high-grade cancer.
“Mine was slow growing, I’d been getting headaches for years but I didn’t think much of it – you think you’re tired or you’ve not drunk enough water or something.
“It’s difficult to say with all this, I’ve had a really bad memory for a long time and difficulty recognising people. There are all these things I’d been experiencing that could be signs, but the brain is complicated- is that just me? The headaches and memory problems could be it.”
A born creative, Leah processed her experience by creating art(Image: Leah Jensen)
With the cancerous tumour removed, Leah faced more treatment to ensure she was cancer-free – including radiotherapy five days a week for six weeks, then a year of chemotherapy.
“The radiotherapy was horrific,” Leah adds. “When it was going on, I think it was fine, but the two weeks after it finished, it was just awful. Because you can’t move your head at all when they’re zapping it, they make this cage that is the exact shape of your face to hold you to the table.
“Then I did a year of chemo, but it wasn’t intravenous – it was medicine that you swallow. That was horrible, I lost a big patch of hair on my head where the radiotherapy happened.
“After all the treatment, there was an area on the scan that they weren’t really able to tell what it was, could be blood, scar tissue or whatever. So I have regular MRIs to keep an eye on it.
Leah’s work will be displayed in a show called ‘Brain Tumour Book – Artist Leah Jensen’s Journey Through Cancer Diagnosis to Treatment'(Image: Leah Jensen)
“For a really long time, I had an MRI every three months, and recently they’ve said I can have one every six months unless I think something is going on.
“My doctor said remission is not the most helpful term; they prefer to just say stable. It’s like they don’t want to be too confident about it.
“The statistics are pretty bleak. For a high-grade brain tumour, only 13 per cent of people survive five years past diagnosis. That’s why I guess they don’t want to say ‘you’re in remission’. I had a seizure in 2020, then I found out it was cancer eight months after, maybe nine, something like that.
“I’m getting near five years, but I don’t think cancer has a clock.”
Leah’s Brain Tumour Book which will soon be on display(Image: Leah Jensen)
As a creative to the core, Leah documented her health journey in a stitched fabric journal that she’s now due to exhibit at The Fitzrovia Chapel with gallery Cavaliero Finn.
The show is called ‘Brain Tumour Book – Artist Leah Jensen’s Journey Through Cancer Diagnosis to Treatment’.
Leah continued: “It all feels like a weird dream that happened, because it was in my brain, and the treatment was making everything so intensely confusing and foggy.
“I had to have my eggs collected and everything, because the chemo and radiation really affect your fertility. In July, I will run out of funding to keep them frozen. I can keep them there if I pay, and then I also have to pay to use them. It’s free for a while on the NHS; it’s this whole big thing.
“In hospital, I spent all the time I could sewing, because making things and being creative is what I’ve always done. It’s been a bit of a safety blanket. When things were really rough when I was younger, I’d take myself off and do these really detailed drawings.
“It’s a natural thing for me to do to relax. The morning I found out I had a brain tumour, the project started. It’s a bit like a sketchbook but also a diary. I stitched things in there that I thought, and put in pictures I’d taken at the hospital.
“I had a suspicion I wouldn’t remember things very well, and I wanted to use this to remember. Sometimes I look at the book and see things I have no memory of; it’s a very visceral way to remember.”
Leah is also raising money for the Brain Tumour Charity, an organisation that is understandably close to her heart.
She continued: “Brain tumours kill more adults under 40 and children than any other cancer in the UK, but they only receive three per cent of funding on cancer research. This Crowdfunder is to pay for the exhibition and raise money for the charity.”
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