Student told he was 'drinking too much' - but the truth was far more serious

A student has shared how her doctor told her she had been 'drinking too much' - only for her to find out she had a serious health condition.

Lucy Younger, 24, was diagnosed with a brain tumour after her alarming symptoms were initially shrugged off as typical 'fresher' behaviour and excessive drinking. Before starting university, Lucy began experiencing strange episodes, including zoning out, smelling bacon, and frequent deja vu. Despite her symptoms worsening, doctors are said to have downplayed her concerns, suggesting she was "drinking too much" and needed to "slow down", even prescribing antidepressants without delving deeper.

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But it wasn't until a CT scan was finally conducted that a benign brain tumour was discovered, leading to a craniotomy to remove it. Now, Lucy, an aspiring journalist from Crystal Palace, London, is determined to raise awareness so others can catch brain tumours early.

Lucy, a trainee journalist, from Crystal Palace, London, said: "Freshers started and my symptoms got quite a lot worse." Doctors said 'you're a fresher, you need to slow down'. They said 'it's a mixture of you being anxious and drinking too much. They were making out I had an issue. I was just being a fresher. It just got blamed on being a fresher."

Lucy first started noticing symptoms just before she started her BA in English at Goldsmiths, in September 2018. She started experiencing déjà vu, as well as visual hallucinations.

Initially thinking she was just partying too hard during freshers, Lucy stopped drinking as much, and regularly chose staying in over nights out. But her symptoms only started getting worse and she experienced a range of sensory hallucinations, like smelling bacon, pins and needles in her face and tasting metal.

She went to the GP when she started getting sharp headaches - but they blamed it on anxiety and "being a fresher". Lucy said: "Straight away, they were like - it's anxiety. I didn't feel all that anxious, but I'd just done a big move from Newquay to London and was meeting lots of new people - so I thought, I guess my brain's just working overtime. But I was still skeptical - I felt really happy with where my life was at that point."

Lucy started to struggle with her concentration and would zone out during lectures but doctors put this down to depression and panic attacks and prescribed her with anxiety medication. She said: "I figured, they're the GP - they know what they're talking about, so I guess I'll just do what they say."

But Lucy's symptoms continued to persist - and doctors then told her it was hormonal caused by PCOS. She said: "I just knew something wasn't right." When Lucy came home in March 2020, when the pandemic hit during her second year of university, she started experiencing seizures. She said: "I had a couple of bigger seizures when I went home - I actually passed out with these ones. I started getting migraines so bad the entire right side of my body would go numb. I thought, I'm either going into psychosis or I've got a tumour - it definitely wasn't depression or anxiety."

Lucy had started Googling her own symptoms and said everything pointed to epilepsy and a brain tumour - but doctors dismissed this. She said: "They said 'you're too young'. 'A girl like you wouldn't have a brain tumour'." Feeling helpless, with permanent hallucinations, Lucy rang a local pharmacist and cried down the phone to him. He sent a letter to her GP, recommending they refer her for a CT scan as soon as possible.

Lucy added: "My pharmacist advocated for me - once he'd spoken to my GP, they arranged for me to have a CT scan. I went in the July - and finally got my diagnosis of a benign brain tumour." She had surgery four months later to remove the tumour, and was able to return to university in 2021 to complete her studies, and graduated the following year. Lucy is now able to live a normal life but has to live with epilepsy and short term memory loss.

She said: "You do know your own body. If there is something wrong you need to advocate for yourself. I caught my brain tumour early. If I hadn't there could have been a chance it wouldn't have been removed and the ending would have been a different scenario. People think a brain tumour is a death sentence - it's not always that way."