‘I was 35, happily married and had just given birth to our first baby when I found out I have an incurable brain tumour’

Sitting up in a hospital bed after a seven-hour operation on her brain, Tara Doyle reached for her phone. She had already used it to take a picture of herself, carefully surveying her reflection and mentally noting every mark and bruise. Two black eyes, eyelids barely able to open. Face, swollen and bloated. Twenty-five staples dotted over the right side of her skull. Her left hand was numb, but with her right hand she texted two words to her husband followed by an exclamation mark: I’m alive!

Tara Doyle recounts the story of her shock cancer diagnosis, gruelling treatment and her determination to put motherhood first Tara Doyle with her daughters Zoey, four, and baby Carla. Photo: Mark Condren Sitting up in a hospital bed after a seven-hour operation on her brain, Tara Doyle reached for her phone. She had already used it to take a picture of herself, carefully surveying her reflection and mentally noting every mark and bruise.

Two black eyes, eyelids barely able to open. Face, swollen and bloated. Twenty-five staples dotted over the right side of her skull.

Her left hand was numb, but with her right hand she texted two words to her husband followed by an exclamation mark: I’m alive! It was September 2, 2020, and surgeons had successfully removed 97pc of a mass that, unbeknownst to Tara, had been growing on her brain for some time. There was a touch of dark humour to that two-word message she sent after she woke from the op, something that features throughout her remarkable cancer survival story — even today, almost five years later..