A nagging mum saved her son’s life after she sent him for an eye test when he complained of headaches – and opticians discovered a deadly bleed on his BRAIN.
Jon Flanders, 23, began suffering from severe headaches in February last year and went to his doctor for help.
But his GP could find nothing wrong and Jon had to go to another two doctors before he was finally given medication for migraines – which he had struggled with as a teenager.
When the headaches failed to improve his mum Elaine, 48, thought they might have something to do with his eyesight and persuaded him to go for an eye test.
Optician Hawa Cassim spotted a severe pressure buildup – which could have killed him within weeks.
She immediately referred the father-of-one to his local hospital in Maidstone, Kent for a CT scan the same day which revealed a deadly bleed.
He was then rushed to King’s College Hospital in London for surgery the next day to remove the clots.
But things took a turn for the worse when he did not wake up due to another larger clot that had started drastically developing in his brain.
He was rushed back into the operating theatre and doctors were forced to remove the clot as well as part of his SKULL.
His worried mum Elaine, dad Grant, 54, and brother Henry, 15, were all told it was a good idea “to say goodbye”.
But brave Jon, a branch assistant for an electrical wholesalers, pulled through against the odds.
He believes an accident when he was hit on the head while “mucking around” with his friend before a martial arts class without protective gear probably caused the bleed.
Jon, of Milton Regis, Kent, said: “We were just in the gym last year, mucking around.
“It did hurt at the time and I felt a bit sick but I thought it was just a bit of concussion and didn’t think to get it checked out.
“The doctor said if the bleed hadn’t been found I would have eventually collapsed and that would have been it.
“I have a two year-old son called Archie and I didn’t know if I’d see him again. It does make you stop and think.
“I am so grateful to my mum for nagging me to go to the opticians.
“Some people haven’t been as lucky as I was and for that I am really grateful to her and everyone that helped me.”
The deadly bleed on Jon’s brain was spotted by Specsavers optician Hawa Cassim at an a
appointment in April last year.
Despite having two major operations and a seizure, Jon was back home within a week and back to work a few months later.
Elaine, a cleaner, said: “We didn’t think we’d be bringing him home again. We thought we would be bringing his belongings home instead.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to have to tell Archie’s mum his dad is dead’. Everything flashed before my eyes.
“There was tears from all of us when he came round – it was just sheer relief that he was alright. He was extremely lucky.”
