'Docs said I had alopecia - the real problem had been growing inside me for eight years'

'Docs said I had alopecia - the real problem had been growing inside me for eight years' Jason Breward began noticing bald patches on his head and face which doctors mistakenly said was alopecia A dad-of-one who was told his balding was alopecia was diagnosed instead with a life-threatening health issue. Jason Breward, 54, began noticing bald patches on his head and face in 2020, but was diagnosed with a brain tumour that had been growing for eight years after his first head MRI in January 2024. In 2020, Jason noticed at least two bald spots and went to see a dermatologist, where he was misdiagnosed with alopecia. After years of receiving treatment for the wrong diagnosis, Jason woke up with a splitting headache in January 2024 and was rushed to the emergency room, where they gave him an MRI. He was diagnosed with a benign 4.6cm tumour pressing on his brain's pituitary gland, and doctors estimated it had been growing for eight years. Jason underwent a seven-hour successful surgery to remove the tumour, but the procedure also damaged the gland, leaving him cross-eyed and without any short-term memory for 18 months. Jason, a digital delivery manager, from Cambridgeshire, said: "I’d noticed balding, one spot on my head and another on my beard, come out of nowhere. “The fact it was on my face as well made me want to check it out. It started a journey that would flip our lives upside down. Of course I was grateful the tumour wasn't cancerous, but the botched surgery meant my wife still had to drop everything to become my full-time carer for two years." Jason experienced two years of slowly losing hair in patches and receiving treatment for skin conditions that were not helping while living in South Africa. In early 2022, Jason had a feeling that the answers for his health problems lay in Spain, so he and his family packed up their lives and moved across continents. "It was a strange sensation, but I knew I wasn't getting the answers I needed with my doctors in South Africa," Jason said. "We pulled our son, Ashton, out of school, sold the house and moved all our belongings, including a car, from South Africa to Alicante, Spain." After just under two years in Spain attending more dermatologist appointments, Jason woke up one morning with a painful headache. Speaking to Sell Us Your Story, Jason said: "In January 2024, I woke up at 5am with a splitting headache and was rushed to the emergency room. Someone finally did a head MRI on me. "Four days before this headache, I said to Marianne, I have a tumour in my brain and pointed to the right side. On the second day in the emergency room, the doctors told my wife the same thing." For a week, Jason was in hospital when they spotted the tumour, and because of where it was sitting, Jason was at risk of going blind. Marianne said: "Jason was in and out of it at this point, and when he was conscious, he was in a lot of pain. "On the fourth day, I was told he had a tumour, and I was in total shock. The next day he went cross-eyed and they decided they needed to operate. "Because it was sitting on his pituitary gland and putting pressure on his eye nerve, they were concerned he could go blind if they didn't operate and take the tumour out." Jason underwent surgery to remove the tumour in February 2024, but the procedure went awry. He said: "A three-hour surgery turned into a seven-and-a-half-hour affair. "I think the doctor accidentally cut an artery near my brain, so I lost a lot of blood, and they damaged the gland the tumour was sitting on. They told Marianne they nearly lost me at one point. I woke up cross-eyed with no short-term memory." After spending a week in the ICU, Jason went home where Marianne dropped everything to become his full-time carer. Jason said: "It was an incredibly difficult time. “I had no short-term memory, so couldn’t remember my breakfast most days, and was sleeping through the afternoons. My wife became my total hero- giving up her senior position at work to become my full-time carer. Despite receiving hormone treatments for months, I was not improving physically or neurologically at all.” Marianne began researching other options and discovered that the neurological department in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge was especially good. In March 2025, over a year after Jason's surgery, Marianne moved the family once more to England, where they now reside in Cambourne, Cambridgeshire. Marianne said: "It was definitely a stressful time, but it felt like the only option to help Jason get better. He was still so lethargic, incredibly forgetful and could only see out of one eye as a result of being cross-eyed.” Just three months after starting treatment in the UK, Jason began to feel better, and six months after moving, his quality of life improved massively. Jason said: "The staff at Addenbrooke shifted my testosterone dosage and started me on HGH, which was the change I needed. "I started being able to concentrate a lot better, I wasn't sleeping through the day, and my vision improved. Unfortunately, because of my pituitary gland being damaged in the surgery, the hair loss is irreversible, but that became the least of my worries." Jason is now focused on launching his new AI systems so he can start providing for his family once more- systems he began researching while in his recovery in Spain. He said: "These systems are mainly education-based but work in a way where they won't just give students the answer, instead providing relevant reading materials, so they can find the answer themselves. "I can't go back to what I'd been doing for years because my brain and body are fried from what I've been through. I'm hoping this can be a fresh start."