College Student’s Headaches Dismissed as ‘Stress.’ Then She’s Diagnosed with a Brain Tumor the Size of a Tennis Ball

NEED TO KNOW

• Gillian Keating’s severe headaches and nausea were initially dismissed as school-related stress, before an MRI revealed a brain tumor

• Doctors removed the benign, tennis-ball-sized tumor pressing on her brain, but now Keating, 21, requires radiation treatment

• She urges others to seek second opinions, crediting persistence for her life-saving diagnosis and treatment

A college student was left stunned after the headaches her doctors attributed to school-related stress turned out to be caused by a brain tumor.

In December 2025, Gillian Keating — a 21-year-old from Arlington, Va. — was in the midst of finals at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, when she started dealing with severe headaches and nausea. She visited a doctor but was told it was “probably stress headaches” due to her workload. However, her symptoms worsened, and the pain became so bad that she would sometimes pass out.

“I’d never had headaches before in my life,” she told Kennedy News & Media, via the Daily Mail. “I thought that was weird, and then progressively I kept having episodes of migraines where I couldn’t even move or breathe. I just had to lay in the dark and my head was shaking.”

After returning home for Christmas break, Keating decided to see another doctor about her symptoms. This doctor immediately ordered an MRI scan in January 2026.

“Within days, my life completely changed,” Keating wrote in a GoFundMe post.

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The scans revealed she had a two-inch brain tumor, about the size of a tennis ball. The tumor was benign (non-cancerous), but doctors suspected it had been growing slowly for the past three or four years.

Keating was told she needed to “go to the emergency room immediately” for surgery because the tumor was pressing against her left frontal cortex, part of the brain responsible for cognitive functions, motor control and speech.

“I was stunned. That was the last thing that I would have expected,” she recalled. “I was scared and worried about the surgery. I didn’t know coming out of it how I would act… or if there would be neurological effects.”

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Keating successfully underwent a six-hour craniotomy to remove the tumor. However, she is now preparing for radiation treatment to ensure the tumor doesn’t grow back.

“It’s crazy that what I thought was college stress got to this point, and I had to undergo massive surgery. I was supposed to graduate in spring and I had a job lined up. Now I’m in a situation where I have to do another semester at school and take time off,” she told the outlet. “That’s just the mental kick of it — and not being able to be with my support team, my school, my friends and having to take life slowly.”

Keating is now encouraging others to “trust your gut” and seek a second opinion if they’re not satisfied with the medical care they’ve received. She hopes sharing her story will prevent others from being dismissed.

“If I hadn’t kept asking and going to the doctor with the pain, then I wouldn’t know I had a tumor,” she said. “You need to keep asking your doctors and pushing for it, and they need to listen to you.”

Read the original article on People