Danielle Laidley reveals she has a brain tumour after shock diagnosis that hit her ‘like a sledgehammer’

Former North Melbourne star and coach Danielle Laidley has revealed she needs urgent surgery to deal with a rare brain tumour after receiving a shock diagnosis she says hit her ‘like a sledgehammer’.

The 58-year-old said she was recently diagnosed with a subependymoma, a type of benign tumor that develops in fluid-filled spaces in the brain.

Laidley’s tumor is also on her spinal cord, with the delicate location meaning she requires an operation to remove it as soon as possible.

‘I started getting headaches back around about October last year, and so I went to the doctors and had scans and CTE cans and MRIs and all that sort of stuff, and they found a brain tumour at the bottom of the back of my skull, on my spinal cord,’ she told The Imperfects podcast. 

‘[It’s a] very rare tumor. I can sit here today and use a quote from my surgeon: It’s not going to kill me, but being on my spinal cord, it has to come out.

‘It’s sort of like walking around with a stone in your shoe. Some days it really hurts, and other days it’s OK.’

Footy great Danielle Laidley (pictured) is bracing for surgery to remove a brain tumour that is sitting on her spinal cord

The shocking diagnosis forced Laidley and her partner Donna Leckie (pictured together) to prepare for the worst  

The shocking news forced Laidley and her partner Donna Leckie to prepare for the worst.

‘It really knocked our socks off,’ Laidley explained.

‘You start to think, “Well, what do I need to do to wind everything up?” and that sort of stuff. 

‘That took its toll.’ 

The premiership-winning Kangaroos great said the news was so harrowing at first that it left her and Leckie speechless.

‘It was as blunt as, “You have a brain tumour, here’s a referral, off you go.”

‘Donna and I went really quiet.

‘For Donna to be quiet, you’ve got to understand [that means] something’s not normal.

‘At that point in time, we didn’t know what sort of brain tumour. When you say brain tumour, it’s like getting hit over the head with a sledgehammer.’

However, once the benign nature of the tumour was explained, the couple realised ‘we’re going to be OK’, Laidley explained.

‘Every now and then I’ll think, gee, I’ve got a brain tumour, which is the downside of it.

‘But the upside is – a great upside – it can be fixed and we can get on with our life.’  

Subependymoma tumors can cause headaches, nausea and vision problems, among other symptoms.

More to come…