Peterborough mum: “I wasn’t prepared to be told my husband, my best friend and the father of my children had just eight to 12 weeks to live and was being referred for palliative care.”
Sam Bravo-Hibberd died just five months after being given heartbreaking diagnosis – and just two months after his third child was born
A Peterborough mum has spoken of the need for vital research into brain tumours – months after she lost her 34 year old husband following a heartbreaking diagnosis.
Mauricee Bravo-Hibberd made the plea as she visited the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) this week.
Mauricee’s husband, Sam, died in February this year – just a couple of months after the birth of his third child, Gabriel. He was just 34-years-old.
The ICR has received a half million pound funding boost – and Mauricee has also been fundraising in Sam’s name, to try and help other families going through a similar ordeal.
Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to the devastating disease since records began in 2002.
Peterborough father-of-three Sam, from Hampton, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma (GBM) – a high-grade glioma-type brain tumour, in September 2023, just two months after the birth of his third child. He was given a devastating prognosis of just eight to 12 weeks.
Despite surgery and radiotherapy, Sam deteriorated and passed away just five months later in February.
“Sadly, the truth was much worse than I’d ever expected”
Mauricee said: “I thought Sam might have early onset dementia because I knew there was a history of it in his family. Sadly, the truth was much worse than I’d ever expected.
“I wasn’t prepared to be told my husband, my best friend and the father of my children had just eight to 12 weeks to live and was being referred for palliative care.”
Mauricee was among a select group of supporters invited to the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at ICR. It’s where research is focused on finding a cure for paediatric high-grade gliomas. The half-a-million-pound investment, which will help test new treatment options, has been announced during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
“Funding into research to bring about better outcomes for brain tumour patients has been woefully neglected for years"
Speaking of the new funding, Mauricee said more funding to help more families was vital.
She said: “This is wonderful news which will bring much-needed hope to families affected by a brain tumour diagnosis.
“Funding into research to bring about better outcomes for brain tumour patients has been woefully neglected for years. We’ve seen radical improvements in survival rates from leukaemia and breast cancer due to substantial investment into research, but not for brain tumours, where treatment options have barely changed in decades.”
Mauricee has also donated a substantial sum which is funding 100 days of next generation sequencing at Brain Tumour Research’s Centre of Excellence at Queen Mary University of London.
“I hope the money we’ve raised, with the help of our super-supportive community in Peterborough, is life changing"
The ICR Centre is working on identifying new treatments, focusing on children and young adults, and will act as a crucial bridge connecting worldwide research and analysing findings which will help inform and enable the setting up of much-needed clinical trials.
On their visit, Mauricee and her friend Kathryn Grace met Professor Chris Jones who leads the research team at ICR, toured the labs and spoke to scientists about their work to find a cure for the disease. She then placed a tile on the Wall of Hope, dedicated to Sam.
Mauricee said a cure could not come soon enough.
She said: “I hope the money we’ve raised, with the help of our super-supportive community in Peterborough, is life changing. It won’t bring Sam back, but I hope it makes a difference for families in the future.
“It’s really comforting to hear directly from the scientists about their work to find a cure, which can’t come soon enough.”
“Brain tumours kill more men under the age of 70 than prostate cancer, yet research into the disease remains so woefully underfunded. This has to change.”
Charlie Allsebrook, community development manager for Brain Tumour Research, echoed the plea for more funding into brain tumours.
Charlie said: “We’re really grateful to Mauricee and her family and friends for their fundraising in Sam’s memory and hope that the visit to our Centre of Excellence at ICR offered a useful insight into all we’re doing to improve treatment options for patients and, ultimately, find a cure.
“Brain tumours kill more men under the age of 70 than prostate cancer, yet research into the disease remains so woefully underfunded. This has to change.”
Brain Tumour Research funds sustainable research at dedicated centres in the UK. It also campaigns for the Government and larger cancer charities to invest more in research into brain tumours in order to speed up new treatments for patients and, ultimately, to find a cure. The charity is the driving force behind the call for a national annual spend of £35 million in order to improve survival rates and patient outcomes in line with other cancers such as breast cancer and leukaemia.
To donate to Brain Tumour Research, go to www.braintumourresearch.org/donate-now