Peterborough teen cancer survivor sits GCSEs 30 years later

Liz Brown sat her GCSE exams in English and maths, 30 years after a cancer diagnosis impacted her schooling

A woman who could not sit her GCSEs as a teenager due to cancer has passed them 30 years later.

Liz Brown, 47, sat English and maths at her old college in Peterborough despite having another cancer diagnosis at the start of the first Covid lockdown.

Ms Brown was originally diagnosed with aggressive osteoblastoma after waking up paralysed on her 14th birthday.

After getting her exam results, she said she had "taken something back" from her cancer.

Plans to go back to college pre-pandemic were put on hold after she developed lung cancer. She had to have her right lung removed and undergo chemotherapy during the first lockdown.

However, she was still determined to study and eventually went back to Peterborough College to do English and maths.

Liz Brown struggled to readjust to school after her cancer treatment

Ms Brown said revising and retaining information was much harder as an adult and felt it was largely down to "chemo brain".

"It's like having a brain fog, so it was difficult to retain information," she said.

"Anything I had learned at school was still there but learning it as an adult was really hard.

"I didn't realise quite how important this would be doing my GCSEs, it's opened a whole new world to me. I really struggled, especially with the lung cancer - it knocked me off my feet."

Liz Brown had to learn to walk again after her cancer diagnosis aged 14

She achieved a grade five in maths - the highest for the foundation course she studied, and a grade eight in English.

After her diagnosis she was initially told she had just five years to live, but after intensive radiotherapy she went into remission but struggled mentally and physically when back at school.

"I came out of this massively traumatic experience to go back to school and be told it's fine. Back then mental health almost didn't exist. I couldn't go on like nothing had happened, my whole world had been turned upside down."

She said she had been able to "right a wrong" by sitting her exams.

When the final one was over, she started getting tears as she realised she had "finally taken something back" from her cancer.

"For me it was about full closure - taking back something I knew I could right the wrong of.

"There's not a lot in the world of cancer that you can take back."