Jennifer Galati turned 12 on September 11, 2001, a date already etched into history. Three days later, Jennifer experienced her own life-changing event, when she learned her chronic symptoms were the result of a brain tumour.

“I would get a strange feeling in my left leg,” Jennifer, of Thunder Bay, Ont., says. “I couldn’t move it. I remember a time I was at the store with my dad and sister and all of a sudden, I couldn’t walk.”

Her parents took her to the doctor, who dismissed their concerns and suggested Jennifer was seeking attention.

“It got to the point where I didn’t tell my parents when it was happening anymore, because I thought no one believed me,” Jennifer says.

The day everything changed

On September 14, 2001, she was rushed to the hospital after experiencing a seizure at home.

“I got to the emergency room around 7 a.m. and didn’t get a CT scan until about 4 p.m.,” Jennifer recalls. “Then, the doctor came in and put the image on the window. That’s how old school it was.”

Jennifer’s tumour, which she compares to a golf ball, was clearly visible. She was flown to SickKids in Toronto the next day—the day she was supposed to be enjoying her birthday party with friends.

“I had to call everybody and tell them it wasn’t happening,” she says.

At her age, she didn’t fully understand what it meant to have a brain tumour.

“I just knew it wasn’t a good thing,” she says, “and I knew I was being flown to this special hospital. I thought, ‘Okay, cool.’”

Finally, time to celebrate

Four days after her seizure, Jennifer underwent a four-hour surgery and learned her tumour was non-malignant.

“I remember waking up in the ICU and asking for a donut,” she laughs.

Jennifer got her donut, and eventually, a celebration with her friends that extended beyond birthday wishes.

Her classmates made her a get well soon card and collected the school work she missed.

“They were excited to see me,” she says. “To this day, people will tell me they remember when I was in the hospital and how they felt about it.”

Jennifer’s school year looked a little different when she returned, with her having to miss Phys Ed class and do physiotherapy. She also had to take care with the post-surgery staples in her head, which were removed that October.

Giving—and getting—help

She noticed an improvement with her leg, too, and was able to resume playing soccer and the sports she loved. Still, she wasn’t completely in the clear.

Jennifer would get “weird sensations” and limpness in her leg, which persist even at 36 years old. She was found to have a cyst growing where her tumour was once, which impacts her movement on occasion.

An MRI every three years keeps tabs on things and thankfully, there hasn’t been any growth. There haven’t been any seizures, either, apart from the initial seizure that landed Jennifer in the hospital.

She now works in health care as a personal support worker for seniors.

“I don’t know if it’s because I had a tumour,” she says, “but I want to help other people.”

Apart from work, she keeps busy in another role—as Mom to her six-month-old daughter.

“I’m grateful that I can walk and drive and take care of a child and have a job in health care, taking care of people,” she says. “I think it’s still important to have support when you’ve gone through what I have and have people take care of you, too. Sometimes, you need that assurance that everything is going to be okay.”