Kamloops mom worries for son's health after brain tumour diagnosis | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Kamloops News

Kamloops mom worries for son's health after brain tumour diagnosis

Landon and his mom, Farrah, on Jan. 4, 2019 in Sun Rivers, Kamloops.

KAMLOOPS —  For the most part, Landon Eddy is just like any other 18-year-old getting ready to start his adulthood. He’s graduated high school and like most people his age, he’s trying to figure out where he wants to go to school next and enjoys spending his weekends with his close buddies.

He’s the social butterfly of his family, according to his mom.

“He’s cracking jokes all the time,” says Kamloops mom Farrah Hamelin. “He kind of seems to attract people.”

And Eddy was still managing to crack jokes even after he suffered a sudden seizure a few weeks before Christmas. The Kamloops mother says she was downstairs with her younger son in their Sun Rivers home when she heard someone getting sick upstairs, at first she says it didn’t concern her until she heard two loud bangs.

“I went up there and Landon was trying to utter out the words that something was wrong and that he smelled this horrible smell,” she says. He also mentioned he had no feeling on his left side.

Hamelin says after her son seemed to slowly recover from the episode, they decided to go to the emergency department in Kamloops. Initially, Hamelin says she was told by medical staff it appeared Eddy had suffered a stroke but they would have to wait until they spoke to a neurosurgeon who could give them more information on Eddy’s CAT scans.

Hamelin says she was told her son’s CAT scans showed he had a left insular low-grade glioma, also known as a brain tumour. The tumour in Eddy’s brain is currently not malignant, meaning it's non-cancerous, but it could turn malignant at any time, Hamelin says she was told by the neurosurgeon.

“I said ‘You’re going to take it out, right?’ and (the neurosurgeon) said ‘not right now it would cost him his speech and his left side,” Hamelin said. Eddy was given medication for his seizures and released from the hospital after being told his condition was not operative at this time. 

The mother says she felt helpless leaving the hospital with the news and also not knowing what their next steps were. A few weeks went by and on Christmas night, Eddy started to feel ill again and had to go back to the emergency department.

“This has just been a nightmare, I just keep wishing I could wake up,” she says.

Hamelin says she has been weighing her options on what to do and has asked her family doctor to refer her son to a neurosurgeon in Vancouver to see if she could speed up the process of trying to find a solution.

She has even been looking at different procedures offered outside of B.C.

The mother hasn't been working to make sure she's able to watch after her son and his unpredicted seizures. A family friend has even set up a GoFundMe page to help with the family's travel, medication and consultation expenses.

The fundraiser has nearly reached its $10,000 goal.

"It's so hard to know when he's going to have a seizure, it's just so unknown at this point," she says. "I just want to get to that point where we know what the plan is and we can figure it out."


To contact a reporter for this story, email Karen Edwards or call (250) 819-3723 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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