Popular Motherwell teacher with brain cancer has 18 months to live without vital treatment

The family of a high school maths teacher from Motherwell has raised almost £100,000 to enable her to travel to Germany for life-saving treatment.

Jeana Watt, from Newarthill, was diagnosed with a Glioblastoma Multiform Brain tumour in June of this year after her partner Stephen found her having a seizure on the kitchen floor.

Jeana, 47, had just come back from the chiropractor and was getting ready for her second Covid jab when she collapsed.

Construction worker Stephen told Glasgow Live of the harrowing discovery that changed their family’s life.

“Jeana was going for her second vaccine, and had arranged to finish work early, as did I”, he explained.

“I opened the back door and saw Jeana lying on the floor of the kitchen. I shouted across and asked what was up, and she looked at me and I knew something was wrong. It turned out she was in the middle of a seizure.”

After calling an ambulance, Jeana was whisked away to the Wishaw General where a CT scan and an MRI scan showed a mass on Jeana’s brain. In only a matter of hours, the bad news was confirmed to them.

“The next morning it was confirmed she had a brain tumour” said Stephen. “It was the first time she had ever taken a seizure or anything like that had ever happened.

“It is a slow killer, so there was nothing beforehand that led us to believe that Jeana was sick.

“The morning of, she said that for 5-10 minutes in her work that her vision had went a bit blurry – like when you come off a plane and had seen the waves of heat coming off the tarmac.

“She had no symptoms like that before either.”

Immediately the family were put in touch with the neurology department at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital who Stephen said were “superb”.

Jeana went in for surgery one week later to try and remove the mass, which her doctor Dr Michael Canti managed to do.

But it wasn’t long before the family received yet more bad news.

After she began radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the Beatson Cancer Centre, Jeana got seriously ill again and had to be rushed to get another CT scan.

There, it was confirmed that the tumour had regrown in her brain and was likely terminal, with doctors giving her 18 months to live.

“Dr Canti removed 100% of the tumour plus the outliers. Jeana’s tumour was the diameter of a 10p, and he managed to get almost all of it plus the stuff around about.

“She was home three days later, and went through radiotherapy and chemotherapy to remove the outliers.

“But once they did a biopsy at the QEUH, they could confirm it was a grade 4 tumour, the highest most dangerous form of tumour.

“If we did nothing after the surgery, Jeana would have 18 months to live because it grows back. If it was benign it may not have grown back but Jeana’s would – and it came back six weeks later.

“It just poured back into the cavity that the other had been removed from.”

Mother-of-three Jeana has valiantly fought her tumour, with Stephen describing her as “a positive person”. While their three children are rightly “devastated”, the family are continuing in their efforts to fundraise and raise awareness of the types of tumour – and treatments – their mother is faced with.

“Using the best options that we have on the NHS – surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy – Jeana has only a best chance of survival rate of 18 months” said Stephen.

“We want to try and increase this greatly to give her a better chance at progression free survival over a longer period of time. We believe the immunotherapy treatment in Cologne will increase her chances of doing this.

“It provides tailor made medicine and treatment which gives you longer to fight it off. People who have these therapies can last five, seven or even 10 years” said Stephen.

“But it’s about 50 grand per treatment – we had no other option but to try and fundraise”.

The type of treatment is called Multimodal Immunotherapy, which will take place after her radiotherapy as a further adjuvant treatment.

It helps the body itself learn to control the tumour and uses and strengthens Jeana’s own immune system in the fight against cancer. It essentially works by sustainably activating Jeana’s immune system to target new cancer cell growth.

And popular Jeana, who before her tumour was discovered was a swim coach alongside teaching maths classes in Coatbridge Skills Academy, has managed to raise a whopping £78,000 out of a £100,000 goal to enable her to travel to Cologne, Germany for life-saving treatment unavailable to her in Glasgow.

Although there is still a bit to go, the family are confident that they will make it.

“We want to raise awareness of her type of cancer, but also the vital therapy that we need here”, said Stephen.

“The Beatson is fantastic but it’s not funded by NHS and it’s limited. The doctors and staff have been outstanding and the facilities have been fantastic, but we could have our own centre for excellence here.”

The fundraiser, written by her sister-in-law Patricia, describes Jeana as the “glue that holds our family together” and says she is a woman with a “heart of pure gold”.

Patricia says: “It is now Jeana who is in real need and we feel that it is our turn to look after her and give her the life she deserves, and can have if we can raise enough funds to pay for this pioneering and innovative treatment.

“For someone who has been active, fit and healthy her entire life, being diagnosed with GBM has come as a great shock; but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t taking this in her stride and as she continues to work and turn up for radiotherapy every day, we have come to realise what a truly amazing person she is in the face of adversity.”

To donate to Jeana’s fundraiser, click here.