Jay Hellis, 24, is battling an aggressive brain tumour for the second time, just months after the birth of his daughter. The Mirror spoke to his mum about his family’s desperate fight to save him.
“I remember feeling the hate of that tumour, but yet desperately needing it.” That’s what Toni O’Callaghan, Jay’s mum, told The Mirror after facing a moment no parent should. She found herself travelling across the country with her son’s tumour in an envelope, bringing it to Germany in a last-chance effort to save him.
The very thing that almost killed him might be the only thing that can keep him alive. “[There was a] mix of emotions,” she said. “I wanted to destroy it, but I knew how much I needed it.”
Jay Hellis, 24, is currently fighting a brain tumour for the second time. I spoke to his mum Toni, who shared the heart-breaking timeline of his illness. It comes after recent news of the NHS warns mouth symptom could be life-shortening disease.
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Jay’s battle began in 2021 when he started experiencing regular headaches, which was unusual for Jay. His mum pushed for a scan – and then came the news no family wants to hear. “They said that he had a 5cm mass on his brain, he had a very aggressive stage four glioblastoma brain tumour, and that’s when our whole world started to fall apart,” Toni shared. After emergency surgery, the extent of the mass was confirmed.
Months of gruelling treatment followed but Jay defied the terrifying odds and was given the all-clear. Life slowly began returning to normal. He and his partner were preparing to welcome their daughter, Matilda, who’s now just days away from turning one. But just one month before her birth, Jay’s cancer returned – and it was worse than they could have imagined.
Jay’s family thought they’d already survived the worst, but looking back, Toni believes that was just the beginning. “That was nowhere near the hardest thing we’ve gone through,” she reflects.
Glioblastoma is rare, aggressive, and relentless – it spreads fast, destroying healthy brain tissue and often returning even after treatment. It’s the most common form of brain cancer in adults. Yet in 2024, glioblastoma research received just 1.69% of total cancer funding – a reality that leaves families like Jay’s feeling hopeless.
‘We desperately want Jay back’
The NHS gave Jay chemotherapy and temozolomide, the treatment for his glioblastoma, but unfortunately he wasn’t responding, and the NHS was unable to help any further. Despite there being no hope left in the UK, the family refused to give up. “We just desperately want Jay back and we’ll do anything – if I’ve got 1% chance, or half of a percent chance, that’s the chance I’m going to take,” Toni told us.
And thankfully with the help of fundraisers and people donating for Jay, she is able to look outside of the UK for treatment.
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While caring for Jay, they searched relentlessly for any possibility that could save her son’s life, the search led Toni to Brain Trust, a UK based brain tumour charity, who asked her questions about Jay’s tumour.
From then, Toni had to “track down” the tumour that she believe had been binned three years ago. Once she recovered Jay’s tumour from University College London Hospital, she was set upon a journey to Germany with the tumour in a brown envelope to seek if the advance treatments would be able to treat his tumour.
“The sample of the tumour was sitting beside me in the car, I just wanted to throw it, destroy it, burn it, but now, I need it, I need it to help save Jay. What’s in this little brown envelope has caused so much damage to my son’s future and I have to drive to Germany with it.”
‘I wanted to throw it, destroy it, burn it – but I need it to save Jay’
Back in the UK, Jay’s condition worsened and he began having severe seizures and was placed in a hospital ward. Doctors told them to prepare for the end but Toni, after finding a surgery in Turkey that offered hope for Jay, fought to get Jay discharged.
Jay made it to Turkey and underwent a debulk, which happens when it’s not possible to completely remove the brain tumour, meaning that part of the tumour has to be left in place – leaving the surgeon to aim to reduce the size of the tumour as much as possible.
Toni claims that, in the UK, they were told the same procedure would do more harm than good. It’s currently in the trial stage in the UK, but unfortunately Jay didn’t meet the criteria.
While Toni and the rest of Jay’s family await updates, doctors believe 50–60% of the tumour has been removed. But glioblastoma doesn’t rest, more treatment, more surgeries, and more funding will be needed.
‘I look into his eyes … half of me wonders if he’s already gone’
“I look into his eyes and half of me thinks this is just a bump in the road, but the other half wonders if he’s already gone,” Toni said. Jay has since showed some signs of improvement, and goes for aided walks around their garden at home, but as his state keeps changing, the goalposts keep moving.
Jay’s family needs more money to seek further treatment, while the tumour is believed to have been mostly removed in the debulk and they’re waiting to see the results.
The treatment Jay needs is immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors which works by blocking proteins called checkpoint proteins. These proteins act as “brakes” on the immune system, preventing it from attacking cancer cells. By blocking these proteins, checkpoint inhibitors help the immune system, specifically T cells, to destroy cancer cells more effectively and allow him to live life unaided.
The family have already spent £299,000 on his treatments and doesn’t know how much more money they’ll need but Toni says they’ll do “anything for our boy, but we need more money. That’s the bottom line.”
Now, they’re asking for help – not just to keep Jay alive, but to give his daughter a future with her dad. To donate or share their story, visit his GoFundMe https://www.gofundme.com/f/ddezc-saving-jay.
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