Max Hall, 14, has been diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour after his mum Jackie claims he had been “fobbed off with Ibuprofen” by doctors saying it was just migraines
23:00, 12 Dec 2025Updated 23:06, 12 Dec 2025
Max Hall has been diagnosed with a brain tumour(Image: Jackie Hall / SWNS)
A mum claims her 14-year-old son’s headaches were dismissed as migraines before he was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour.
Max Hall had been suffering severe headaches along with migraines for months but his mum Jackie claims doctors “fobbed him off with Ibuprofen”. But just days after his 14th birthday he suffered a severe seizure and was rushed to hospital and placed on life support.
Now the teenager has been diagnosed with a Stage 4 brain tumour and doctors are saying it’s untreatable. His family are now urgently raising funds to take the teenager abroad for treatment not provided by the NHS.
Max now needs to have treatment in Germany(Image: Jackie Hall / SWNS)READ MORE: Surprised locals look up and see strange plane bigger than football field flying aboveREAD MORE: Chilling first signs of war with Russia – loss of phone signal and card failure
Mum Jackie, 44, said: “We were rushed to hospital on November 27 because Max had a seizure, so he was put on life support for two nights. We got the results of an MRI scan to say they found a large tumour on the left side of his brain.
“Max has been suffering with headaches for over a year and I was being a bit cross about this. It’s quite rare that they see children with head scans because it’s such a rare condition. The staff at Kettering General assured me it was just teenage migraines. They told what it was on the 29th. We know that it’s terminal because of the size of the mass on the brain. It’s stage 4 terminal, they can’t remove or shrink the growth.
Max Hall with his mum Jackie(Image: Jackie Hall / SWNS)
“It can’t get any worse. There’s literally nothing that they can do for him in the UK. This is Max’s life. We know we can never beat this, it’s more about him getting more time. He’s fit and healthy, he’s a real sporty lad. The only thing he had leading up to this were frequent headaches that turned into migraines, which Kettering General dismissed.
“They were there for over a year and we were just fobbed off with ibuprofen. They didn’t look into his eyes, they diagnosed him based on a conversation. I should have pushed for a head scan.”
The family has raised £97,000 of their £250,000 goal to fund specialised treatment in Germany where hospitals offer a form of personalised vaccine which helps slow tumour growth, hopefully allowing Max to live normally for longer.
Doctors have said his condition is untreatable(Image: Jackie Hall / SWNS)
Mum-of-three Jackie said: “He had a biopsy two days ago which they told us would take a tiny amount out of the tumour. They can’t remove it as it’s in a place of the brain that’s too dangerous to move. We know that Max will be able to have radio and chemotherapy. He’ll have a course of six weeks of that.
“We’re looking at going to Germany for a different type of treatment that the UK doesn’t offer. It’s almost a personalised vaccine. They take blood from Max, look at the cells and create a vaccine personalised to Max’s tumour. What happens is the vaccine is injected back into Max which tries to kill the cells.
Max had been suffering severe headaches and migraines(Image: Jackie Hall / SWNS)
“We’re looking at months and months of treatment for him. You fly out every couple of weeks. Whilst Max is going through the standard NHS treatment, we’re looking to get the ball rolling. So within the next six and seven weeks is when we hope to get him there.
“We know from previous patients that they raised £150,000 which gave them roughly four months treatment. We know we need a ball park figure of £250,000 for an initial year of treatment. This is to freeze the tumours as it is, it’s not a cure. We just need him around with us.”
Max is in high spirits says him mum(Image: Jackie Hall / SWNS)
Max, a lifelong Manchester United fan, has received well wishes from club legend Bryan Robson as Jackie says he’s in high spirits.
She added: “Bryan Robson left him a message to give him well wishes. Max is taking it so well, it’s so great. He’s tired all the time and he’s losing some of his memory.
“He can’t remember a conversation two minutes ago, and sometimes his speech is jumbled up. But he’s blown me away with how well he’s doing. We don’t want an end date for him, we want to keep fighting.”
In a statement, The University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Group Medical Director, Hemant Nemade, said: “Our thoughts are with Max and his family at this unimaginably difficult time. We are looking into the circumstances of his care with us to establish what happened in order to learn from this.”