Mirroring life with a brain tumour Karen Risgaard, Hanne Lisby and Pia Riis Olsen The Danish Brain Tumour Association
“The films make me remember and bring back memories of unsolved problems that I realize I need to face now.” (a brain tumour patient)
Karen Risgaard
Hanne Lisby
Pia Riis Olsen
Many patients and their relatives are emotionally moved watching the films we created and they tell us that we have managed to capture their lives and that they completely recognise the situations displayed.
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n September 2021 we (The Danish Brain Tumour Association, HjernetumorForeningen) released nine short films on our webpage about the impact a brain tumour can have on a family. From members of our Association we had experienced a huge need for understanding of their environments and about the consequences of living with a brain tumour. Therefore, we produced the films to enlighten people and raise general awareness of the impact of life with a brain tumour – and additionally increase knowledge especially among politicians,
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Brain Tumour
healthcare professionals, general practitioners, job consultants, colleagues, and newly diagnosed patients and their relatives. Being a small patient organisation with about 280 Danish members, we needed to create something extraordinary and hoped that visualising the issue might catch people’s attention and make them better understand. We chose to focus on a patient with a low-grade brain tumour, as we have experienced their situation to be hugely challenging during survivorship over many years. They are expected to continue their
everyday life as before and return to the same jobs. Many friends, colleagues etc. have expectations that the patients can rarely meet. In the films we follow “Lotte” from the night she wakes up with an epileptic attack, through examinations and an operation to the problems that arise when she is expected to return to a demanding job. Nobody understands that Lotte is challenged and that her brain is affected by the operation. Lotte’s husband and daughter also experience huge changes in their lives due to Lotte’s brain tumour.
