Teenager diagnosed with rare brain tumor as symptom was dismissed as dehydration
A teen who was told 'not to worry’ about her seizure, was later diagnosed with a ‘pebble-sized’ brain tumor which led to her spiraling down a ‘rabbit hole’.
Shannon Graham’s life changed in January 2024, after suffering a medical emergency.
The criminal science student from Dulwich, London, UK, was taken to hospital after a going through her first-ever seizure, which was chalked up to her possibly being dehydrated by the attending nurse.
But after going home, things only got worse from there for Shannon.
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She said: “When I woke up, my whole family was around me and dad told me I’d had a seizure.
"I've never had any seizures, so I was 100% scared and I had no idea what was going on.”
She explained that a ‘nurse told me I might have been dehydrated and not to worry’, and after going home, she thought ‘everything was fine’.
That was until she had another seizure just weeks later whilst 'drifting off to sleep’, causing her to bite her tongue.
After being taken for an MRI, they found a rare tumor, that impacts 1.2 per cent of all tumor cases affecting those under 20 and 0.2 per cent of people over 20, per the National Library of Medicine.
Known as dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNET), this tumor typically occurs on the temporal lobe of the brain, or the frontal lobe, which there Shannon’s grew too.
She explained the tumor looked like ‘a little pebble on the sand’ when she was shown the MRI, explaining that this set off her depression as she ‘spiraled down into a really bad rabbit hole.’
She was promptly put on anti-seizure medication and monitored with monthly MRI scans, revealing that not even her doctors knew ‘what was going on’, and claimed ‘they found it quite bizarre’ that her family members didn’t have preexisting epilepsy due to the ‘intense’ nature of hers.
Shannon’s could become so inadvertently strong that she’d punch her parents.
The impact of her condition led to her feeling depressed.
"I just had appointment after appointment and therapy sessions because I was so depressed. I had eight months of being looked at and analysed - I hated it because I'm not a fan of hospitals,” she said.
Thankfully, the low-grade tumor was removed in September 2025, and she was able to return to her classes at London South Bank University, within a matter of weeks.
Shannon revealed that the ‘operation went smoothly, and they managed to remove the whole’ thing.
Shannon is now taking part in the 200k in May Your Way Challenge for Brain Tumour Research, which is a charity event where attendees need to cover the 200-kilometer distance (124 miles) by either walking, running, cycling or swimming.
Right now, she has been cleared of the tumor but needs to go for yearly MRI checks to make sure it doesn’t reappear.
Britt Jones