Balderton dad Andrew Hirst speaks of positive thinking after grade 4 glioblastoma diagnosis

After being given a devastating terminal diagnosis, a Balderton father of three said that keeping positive and “getting on with it” has kept him going.

Andrew Hirst, 35, was sadly told by doctors that he has a brain tumour — grade 4 glioblastoma — with a prognosis of 12 to 18 months, and the community, his friends and family have rallied round with the aim of raising a quarter of a million pounds to give him more precious time with his family.

As a busy working father to Freddie, 10, Juliana, 6, and three-year-old Maximilian, travelling the country as a practitioner for the David Ross Education Trust, Andrew had initially put the headaches and fatigue he had been experiencing down to exhaustion.

“I’d take some paracetamol and it would go away but always come back,” he recalled, “We’re a very active family and our children do swimming and Parkruns and just put it down to busy family life.”

Andrew had been to the GP and was initially diagnosed with migraines, but then on November 11, 2024, the headaches and fatigue became worse — to the extent that by the next day, he was being sick and couldn’t move from the bathroom floor.

He called his wife Rachael to come home and get him to the doctors after calling NHS 111, and he was sent for a same-day appointment with his GP, when he was rushed to King’s Mill Hospital with a temperature of 42°c and was so sensitive to light that he had to wrap a thick towel around his eyes.

The medical team at King’s Mill initially suspected meningitis, but a CT scan showed that there was a large tumour on his brain which had already shifted his brain by 8mm.

Andrew remained in hospital for five days on steroids to reduce the swelling, and when the swelling was reduced he was then transferred to Queen’s Medical Centre for surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible.

“The first thing I said when I came round from the surgery was ‘where’s my running shoes and my laptop’”, Andrew recalled, “I felt fine and I just wanted to get on with it and come home to my family.

“I wanted to eat to get my energy levels up and people were telling me I was mad, and to just rest and relax, but I was having none of it and wanted to be in my own bed.”

Andrew then underwent 30 sessions of chemotherapy and 30 sessions of radiotherapy to reduce the tumour, but sadly these treatments will not cure glioblastomas of this nature and he has a life expectancy of between 12 to 18 months.

He will undergo a scan on March 1 to see if the treatment has shrunk the tumour — if it has, then his life expectancy could be longer than this, but if not, then sadly Andrew could not make it to Christmas this year.

“What I’ve learned is that these are just statistics,” he said, “I’ve done research and there’s people who have lived longer than this and there’s people who have lived for five or even eight years with these types of tumours.

“It’s positive, but I’ve also got to remember that for every one that is positive, there are 10 others that aren’t.

“But keeping active and being positive is what’s kept me going.”

Incredibly, Andrew took part in the Newark Parkrun just 40 days after the surgery and walked the route, completing it in 83 minutes.

“I was exhausted afterwards but I wanted to do it, I just wanted to get better for the children and get life back to normal for them, I was so determined,” he said, “Juliana said she doesn’t want to do Parkruns without me and we always do them together.”

Andrew described the moment when he and Rachael had to tell their oldest son Freddie about his diagnosis, as Juliana and Maximilian are too young to fully understand what is happening other than their daddy has a “bad head”.

“It was on Friday that my wife had a chat with him, he knew it was cancer, but it was then that the penny dropped, that he knew I was going to die, and he sobbed and sobbed,” Andrew said.

“But I told him we need him to be brave and make daddy proud at his swimming.”

A GoFundMe page is now up and running to try and raise the £250,000 needed for Andrew to undergo hyperthermy and immunotherapy treatments overseas, which are not available on the NHS but will extend the precious time he has with his family.

He urgently needs to raise the money as soon as possible.

In just a matter of days, nearly £56,000 has been raised towards the cause. To make a donation, you can do so online at https://gofund.me/0416d92b

Andrew said the community around Newark and beyond have really rallied round to help organise fundraisers and help his family while he has undergone treatment.

“We’re so appreciative and it’s been just amazing how people have been donating,” he said, “I’ve had donations from people I haven’t heard from in years, and one former student said that I had helped them when they had no-one and they wanted to help me now, which was incredible.”