A 23-year-old medical student has shared his harrowing journey from unexplained exhaustion to a devastating brain tumour diagnosis, revealing how persistent symptoms were repeatedly dismissed by healthcare professionals before a critical collapse in a takeaway restaurant led to life-saving intervention.
Years of Unexplained Symptoms
Alex Warwick, a fourth-year medicine student at Liverpool University, had experienced waves of overwhelming tiredness throughout his teens and early twenties. These episodes would strike without warning, leaving him fighting to stay awake with slurred speech and weakness in his limbs.
"I'd have to fight extremely hard to stay awake and it felt as though my whole body was shutting down," Alex recalls. "Often I'd also get a strange weakness in my arms and legs, and if I tried to talk, my speech would be slurred."
Medical Dismissals and Missed Opportunities
Despite repeatedly visiting GPs and specialists, Alex was told his symptoms were merely stress-related or sleep issues. No medical professional ordered the CT or MRI scans that would have revealed his condition earlier.
"I kept going back to the GP and to specialists, but nobody ever seemed alarmed, or correctly identified what was happening," he explains. "If anyone had ordered a CT or MRI scan, that would have shown my condition. But no one ever did."
The Takeaway Collapse That Changed Everything
In May 2025, while standing in a takeaway restaurant and chatting to a friend on FaceTime, Alex experienced his most severe episode yet. Both arms became weak, he couldn't form words, and had to lift one arm with the other to rest it on a table.
"This time, it was different," he remembers. "I wasn't just sleepy, both my arms were weak and I couldn't get any words out to my friend on the phone."
After the episode passed, Alex went home but soon developed a piercing headache and began vomiting - symptoms completely out of character for him. Concerned friends, who were also medical students, urged him to call NHS 111, leading to an ambulance transfer to A&E.
Devastating Diagnosis
Within weeks, Alex received the shocking diagnosis: a rare grade 4 glioma, being treated as a glioblastoma with an average prognosis of 12 to 18 months. The tumour had already caused bleeding in his brain.
He underwent immediate brain surgery, with surgeons removing approximately 70% of the tumour. The remaining portion was too deep and delicate to reach safely.
Treatment Challenges and NHS Limitations
Following surgery, Alex underwent six weeks of daily radiotherapy and oral chemotherapy, which initially reduced the tumour size. However, by December 2025, scans revealed the cancer had spread to additional brain layers and his spinal cord.
The NHS standard care for glioblastoma - unchanged for approximately two decades - offers limited further treatment options. With only three months of additional chemotherapy available through the NHS, and his current regimen proving ineffective, Alex faced a critical decision.
Fundraising for Cutting-Edge Treatment
Research led Alex and his family to a promising immunotherapy treatment available at a clinic in Germany, though not yet accessible through the NHS. The treatment carries a staggering £200,000 price tag.
His three older sisters launched a fundraising campaign just after Christmas, raising over £140,000 in a single month from more than 3,500 donors, many complete strangers moved by his story.
"Reading the messages attached to the donations has helped keep me positive," Alex shares. "I look at the fundraiser website every night before I go to sleep. It's incredibly humbling."
Current Situation and Reflections
Alex is now receiving immunotherapy treatment at the IOZK cancer centre in Cologne, Germany, funded by the remarkable public response to his fundraising campaign.
Despite the devastating diagnosis at just 23 years old, Alex maintains hope and gratitude for the support he's received. "Right now, I'm feeling hopeful and optimistic about what lies ahead," he says. "And throughout it all, I've never doubted that I am deeply loved. For that alone, I will be forever grateful."
His experience highlights concerning issues in brain tumour diagnosis and treatment, particularly given that brain tumours represent the biggest cancer killer in children and adults under 40, yet receive only one percent of cancer research funding.
