S
itting by herself, across from
her doctor, she heard the
words “tumour” and Christine
Smith-Mann felt herself
mentally fall away. “I didn’t really
hear anything more she said; all I
could think of was my three children,”
she says. Once outside the room, she
collapsed in the stairwell, shaking, and
later, as her boyfriend and children
slept, she cried, hidden away in the
bathroom. But, as the first morning
light appeared following a sleepless
night, Christine found a new resolve.
“I thought I had better pull myself
together,” she says.
Devastating diagnosis
A few months before her 40th
birthday, Christine had begun
experiencing what she calls “brain
spasms”. “I’d be reaching for a stalk
of broccoli in the fridge,” she recalls,
“and it felt like someone took a straw,
inserted it into my ear and blew really
hard. After that, I’d feel my brain
blow up, and then, like a balloon,
slowly deflate.” By the time she was
experiencing one “spasm” a day, she
thought it was time to seek medical
advice, but she didn’t feel satisfied with
the diagnosis her regular doctor gave.
“In the end, I thought it was better
to see someone who didn’t know my
medical history, didn’t know me at
The Life of
the Party
When this mum received a devastating diagnosis,
she took action, got healthy and started a new
adventure, writes
Elle Kwan
.
all,” she says. Immediately following
that consultation, she was sent for an
MRI scan, and the following day was
called back to the office. “I knew it
must be bad,” she says, “but I wasn’t
prepared for a tumour.”
She began emailing the clients
she was working with at CSM
Communications, the PR company
she had founded, and after that, her
friends, which is when the phone
began ringing off the hook. “I just kept
telling them, ‘I’ll be OK, I’ll be fine,”’
she says. Next, she braced herself
for a family meeting with the kids,
where she told them about the surgery
she’d need to remove a mandarin
orange-sized tumour clinging to her
cerebellum, affecting her sight and
spatial awareness and leaving her
ricocheting off any doorframes she
attempted to walk through.
The kids listened. Her youngest,
Charleigh, now ten, was horrified
that doctors would be working
on her mum’s brain. Her eldest,
Daniel, merely proclaimed the
procedure “gross,” while her middle
son, Christopher, whom she says is
“incredibly intuitive,” reached to her
and asked to feel the tumour site. “It
was strange that he used the word
‘tumour’ because I hadn’t,” she says.
Then she packed her bags – not for
the dream birthday celebration to
the Maldives she had spent months
planning – but for the hospital and
a six-hour surgery. It was only later
that she realised that this unexpected
journey would transform her life.
Getting back on track
Up until the operation and
immediately afterwards, Christine
says she felt a genuine positivity that
things would work out OK. And that
feeling seemed to ring true as she
60
Playtimes
