Race against time for newlywed who has less than 12 months to live

Dad-of-four Glen Snape, 50, had just married his partner Kate, and said he had “never been happier”.

But the company director, from Fulwood, Preston, became disorientated while on a trip to Wales last month, and has now been told he has glioblastoma – a highly malignant brain tumour.

Glen is fighting to find a treatment to prolong his life, but fears nothing is currently available to him in the UK and says he is facing a “race against time”.

Early last month, Glen set off to visit his cousin in Wales, after waking up with no symptoms.

But he said: “I started getting deja vu while driving, quite suddenly. I went down a one-way street the wrong way, I didn’t even notice, and Kate said ‘What are you doing, is something wrong with you’?”

Glen pulled into a supermarket car park and an ambulance was called, and he had three “huge” fits in the ambulance.

He was raced to hospital in Wales, and was later referred to the Walton Centre in Liverpool, where he had surgery to remove the tumour.

It was found that Glen had glioblastoma – a level four cancer.

He said: “There are four sub-versions of that, and I have the most aggressive form of that, and it’s resistent to chemotherapy.

“Out of all the cancers you can get, this kills more people than anything else, with the worst prognosis.

“I have less than 12 months from March, they have told me.”

He said the type of tumour he had would always recur, and so could not be cured.

After his surgery, Glen said he could speak and move and was “fine”, but said: “I’m not going to stay like this.

“I’ve got about three months and I’ll deteriorate rapidly because they can’t remove all of it and it’s resistant against chemotherapy.

“I’m in a race against time.”

Glen said, since his diagnosis, he has spent 16 hours each day researching possible treatments for the “very common cancer”.

He said: “There are huge numbers of things that can change it, but none of them are available in the UK.

“In America, they have a headset they put on the head and that stops the cells dividing.

“It’s clinically proven to work better than anything else.”

But Glen said, because of the cost, the headset was unavailable in the UK.

He said no trials were going on in this country into treatment for the type of cancer, and has considered paying for treatment in Germany.

He also said he could not get a vaccine developed, which was his “only hope”.

He said: “I’m sitting here trying, if I can get a success on this: it can cure people’s cancer, and I’m prepared to do that.”

Glen said: “Getting that headset is critical.”

He has now started radiotherapy, but said the headset would give him a “40 to 50 per cent chance of extending (his) life for many months”.

A debate was held in parliament this week in which the government acknowledged more must be done to help brain tumour patients, but Glen said any research would come too late to help him.

Glen has changed his diet, completely cutting out carbohydrates, and said: “I’m well, I’m healthier and better than I’ve ever been, I’ve no symptoms.

“The morning this started, I said to my wife ‘You could put a gun against my head and shoot me now and you would be shooting the happiest man in the world’ – I’ve never been happier.

“I’m eating healthier, I’m surrounded by my beautiful family and my brilliant clinical team, I can’t ask for more.

“It’s not their fault I’ve got this, it’s not my fault I’ve got this.”