A mother of two who dismissed her twitchy eye as a sign of stress was shocked to discover it was actually due to rare type of brain tumour.
A subsequent operation to remove the growth has left her face partially paralysed and as a result, she’s unable to smile.
Jade-Marie Clark, from Glasgow, first began experiencing what she thought was a painful ear infection while pregnant with her first child in March 2020.
But after he was born in September that year, she found the pain subsided and largely ignored it.
However, when she became pregnant for a second time in 2023, the 32-year-old started to have headaches and suffer what she described as a ‘twitchy eye’.
At the time, Ms Clark was studying to become a nursery school teacher and put her symptoms down to a combination of exam stress and hormones.
But when a new symptom — numbness at the corner of her lips — emerged in May 2023, she booked an appointment with her GP.
She was rushed into hospital for an MRI scan which revealed the devastating cause of her symptoms — a kind of brain tumour called an acoustic neuroma, which grows in the nerve that connects the brain to the ear.
Jade-Marie Clark dismissed her twitchy eye as a simple sign of stress but was shocked to discover it was actually a rare type of brain tumour
Sadly, an operation to remove the growth has left Ms Clark face partially paralysed and she has been left unable to smile. Ms Clark picture here with her sons Theo (left) and Rory (right)
Doctors estimated the 3.1cm tumour had been slowly growing in her head for about five years, before rapidly expanding in size within the space of six months, triggering symptoms.
Acoustic neuromas, also called vestibular schwannomas, are a type of rare brain tumour, with only 1,200 cases diagnosed per year.
They are what’s known as benign, meaning they don’t spread to other parts of their body like a cancer, however they can still cause life-threatening problems as they grow in size.
When they reach a certain diameter, they can begin to cause damage to other areas of the brain.
However, they are usually spotted before this stage.
Ms Clark had to wait six months before having an operation to remove the tumour as she couldn’t go under the knife until after she gave birth to her youngest son Rory in November 2023.
While the 10-hour operation was a success, Ms Clark was left with facial palsy — nerve damage that causes the facial muscles to weaken or freeze — that has left her unable to smile or to cry out of her right eye.
Sharing her story to raise awareness about the condition, she recalled dismissing her twitching eye as ‘stress’.
An MRI at hospital which discovered the real cause of her symptoms was a rare type of brain tumour called an acoustic neuroma. The tumour is the large white mass circled in yellow
While a 10-hour operation in April last year to remove the tumour was a success, Ms Clark was left with facial palsy, a weakening of the nerves in the face, that has left her unable to smile or to cry out of her right eye. Here she is pictured soon after the operation
‘Before I fell pregnant, my eye started twitching for long periods of time and I thought this was down to the stress of college,’ she said.
‘I just put it down to hormones and me being busy and having a two-year-old.’
Ms Clark said the facial palsy she developed after her operation has had a devastating impact on her confidence.
‘My right eye does not close and I can’t smile. And because my eye doesn’t produce tears it’s in pain a lot because it’s so dry,’ she said.
‘I thought my face would start to move on its own but there was nothing and that’s when the self doubt started to kick in.
‘As well as being anxious, I became really depressed with how I looked.
Ms Clark said the facial palsy she developed after her operation has had a devastating impact on her confidence and left her not wanting to leave the house
‘In my head I thought people would laugh at me.
‘I didn’t want to leave the house and I didn’t want anyone to see me. I was just so sad.’
Ms Clark is scheduled to undergo an operation that will transfer a nerve from another part of her face and two from her legs to hopefully restore her smile.
The operation, which will take place in March, may not be effective for at least 18-months.
However medics say after this period there is an 80 per cent chance Ms Clark will regain the movement in her face.
