A student thought a drunken fall during Freshers' week had simply left her with concussion - only for it to reveal she had a hidden incurable brain tumour. Alice Chawner says she was 'really drunk' when she fell down a set of 15 concrete steps in her halls of residence at University in Manchester and 'smacked' her head.
The 25-year-old assumed she had concussion and put off visiting the hospital until a medical student advised her to a few days later. In hospital she was 'shocked' when an MRI scan revealed she had a low-grade glioma, a type of brain tumour, and had surgery weeks later.
Between 2021 and 2024 she had five different surgeries to manage regrowth and infection and was able to live a 'normal' life - and she even completed her religion and theology degree. However, the former event start-up business owner was 'devastated' to discover her tumour had progressed to grade four in June 2025 so needed immediate surgery.
Despite having 33 rounds of radiotherapy as well as two rounds of chemotherapy she received the 'scary news' that a new tumour had developed in a different part of her brain. Having just finished emergency radiotherapy and left with no other UK treatment options Alice has set up a GoFundMe page raising funds to explore options abroad to 'improve the quality of the rest of her life'.
Alice says she is 'grateful' for the drunken fall that might've prolonged her life as she showed no symptoms for the tumour, which doctors say could have been there for five to eight years. Now she wants to advocate for people to have more regular brain scans and encourage people to search for other treatment options quicker than she did so they are not 'too late'.
Alice, who lives in Notting Hill, London, said: "It's a happy accident that a drunken fall could've prolonged my life. I'm grateful that happened.
"It's crazy to know I probably had the tumour for five years and I had no symptoms whatsoever and it was a completely accidental finding. I got really drunk and I slipped and fell down the stairs. There's a big question mark as to whether I had a seizure at that point and that's what made me blackout.
"I smacked my head on the fall. I think the alcohol made it less painful. The following day I had a medic opposite me and she was like 'you definitely need to go to hospital'.
"I'd been concussed from school and sport before and I thought 'I really can't be bothered to do this'. They were like 'yeah we've found something but it's probably nothing'. Then they did an MRI scan and kept me in and just told me they think it's a brain tumour and referred me to the nearest neuro surgery. This was all a bit of a shock.
"I didn't even register it. I went into survival mode and thought 'let's do this'. It was a bit daunting. Apart from a couple of seizures I've never had any symptoms per say.
"I genuinely believe if I hadn't found it in 2020 by now I probably would've had symptoms but it would've been a lot longer down the road. You've given yourself a good chance by finding it early."
After living a relatively normal life for four years since her diagnosis despite hospital visits and regular seizures, Alice then discovered her tumour was growing more rapidly in March 2025.
She was offered a trial drug designed for grade two astrocytoma and went through egg retrieval to give her a better chance of being able to have kids in the future. But on the day her trial was meant to start in June she was 'devastated' to discover her tumour had progressed to grade four so she needed immediate surgery.
Unfortunately she found out a new tumour had grown in a different area of her brain despite radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Alice said: "It was really devastating news. It was the worst news I've ever had. That's the first time I ever cried in her clinic room.
"I put myself and my body through so much stress and hormonal imbalance and all of it had kind of been for nothing. I didn't have to really go through the egg removal because it was like 'great, I'm not even going to get to the point where I'm going to have children so why have I put myself through that'?
"Objectively if you look at me and speak to me I'm completely normal. There would be no indications of me having a brain tumour.
"[The doctors] told me the chemo was not working and I've now got a new tumour in a different part of my brain. It was really scary news because that means it's really not working and it's growing very quickly."
The graduate had another 10 cycles of emergency radiotherapy but has now exhausted all other treatment options in the UK. She said: " What was years to live has now become months, and there are very few established treatments left for me to try."
Currently Alice and her family are looking into other treatment options abroad such as immunotherapy vaccines in Germany but fear it's 'too late'. Now she encourages others to check out all of their treatment options as early as possible.
Alice said: "It's wild what we've had to look into and it's been so disheartening that with my tumour we thought everything was going well and now suddenly it's not and I'm too late.
"I might not have enough time to even start these things. One of the immunotherapy vaccines takes four to six months to develop.
"We're raising money to give me options. It's just about improving the quality of the rest of my life which is really a sad thing to say but there's not much choice here.
"I think we should be advocating for more checks and I think we need to be doing more regular scans on brains. There are so many people who find [a brain tumour] when it's grade four and it's too late.
"I've been told I have a very rare tumour but also that I'm too late for these trials. I want to encourage people that as terrifying as it may seem it's so important to look at these so early.
"It's something I really wish I had looked into this time last year and then I'd get a bigger choice." You can donate to Alice's fundraiser here
