Redcar’s Steve Lamb turned out to have a grade four glioblastoma brain tumour after he was rushed to hospital when he spilled his dinner over himself a couple of days before Christmas.
He had been suffering from severe headaches since the start of December 2025 while working 12-hour shifts at a hospital.
The ex-army mechanic turned critical care nurse now has between a year and 18 months to live, leaving his wife, Sarah, 44, and four children devastated.
He underwent surgery to remove most of the tumour and is now undergoing six weeks of radiotherapy and intense chemotherapy in the hopes it will prolong his life.
The 46-year-old dad, said: “I started to get migraines at the beginning of December 2025 but I put it down to the stress of work and finding out our (then) eight-year-old son was a type-one diabetic.
“Then, on December 23, my wife brought me my dinner which I ended up spilling on myself and I had an episode of two to three minutes of confusion.
Steve Lamb, with his father. (Image: Steve Lamb / SWNS)
“She thought I was having a stroke.”
He was then rushed to A&E at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough – the same hospital where he started working in 2024 after 24 years in the army.
There, he underwent a CT scan and a four-centimetre lesion in his brain was found before being confirmed as a high-grade glial tumour on Christmas Eve.
Steve received two craniotomies on January 12 and 16 with a neurosurgeon able to remove most of the tumour – but a small part remained.
And on January 22, he was left in shock after medics told him the cancer – a Grade 4 glioblastoma – was terminal.
Steve said: “All I could think about was my wife and kids. I’m not scared of dying.
“I was more scared and upset for my wife and kids and how they will cope.
“I was upset at what I’m going to miss – not seeing my youngest grow up, not seeing kids get married, never becoming a grandpa.”
He explained: “The neurosurgeon removed 98 to 99 per cent of the tumour.
Steve Lamb with his badges. (Image: Steve Lamb / SWNS)
“That sounds amazing but what makes this cancer terminal is (that) any cancer cells left over will eventually return as a tumour.”
Steve is now undergoing six weeks of radiotherapy and intense chemotherapy in a bid to boost his lifespan.
He is later planned to have six cycles on an increased dose of chemotherapy and will receive the treatment in five-day bursts for the foreseeable future.
Still juggling a full-time job at the same hospital where he receives treatment, Steve’s illness has rendered him unable to drive.
He and Sarah, a recently qualified learning disability nurse who is not working while Steve undergoes treatment, are trying to keep things as normal as possible for nine-year-old Hunter, 10-year-old Harrison, Skyla, 16 and elder son Joseph, 23.
He said: “Telling my children it was cancer was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
“They still don’t know the prognosis of 12 to 18 months.
“We are trying to keep that from them as long as possible.”
He is aiming to raise £75,000 to boost time with his family through personalised vaccine therapy in Germany and CAR-T therapy in Israel.
Link to Steve’s fundraiser: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/steve-lamb-1