JUST over a year ago, first-time parents Jade Underwood-Tattersall and Dean Haywood sat beside the hospital bedside of their first child praying she would stay alive.
At the time, the unnerving bleep of hospital monitoring equipment was the only sign of life and glimmer of hope that their prayers were being answered.
It was in November 2011 that Jade and Dean were told by doctors there was a high probability that their baby would die.
A tumour with a large cyst had been found growing in Brianne's brain. Together the tumour and cyst were about half the size of her brain.
Baby Brianne had an operation to drain the cyst on the same day her panicked mum brought her to the Queen's Medical Centre because she had fallen unconscious.
A week later Brianne had to be christened in an hospital corridor before going under the surgeon's knife once again to have part of her skull removed to take out part of her tumour – which had been found to be cancerous.
Her tumour is known medically as an anaplastic ependymona – and is extremely rare, with less than ten cases per year in Britain.
The operations have seen Brianne, now 16 months old, hospitalised for effectively all of 2012 and she has been put on a course of chemotherapy.
But doctors allowed her to go home on a permanent basis just before Christmas Day.
After a year of worry, tears and rushing down hospital corridors, the Sneinton couple's new year outlook this time around will be very different. Today they will wake up in their semi-detached house in Skipton Circus together and bring in the year at home for the very first time as a family.
The couple are expecting their second child in July.
Jade, 25, said: "Brianne is still having her chemotherapy, but it will be nice not to have to be in hospital this new year.
"It's been a horrible year and put pressure on our relationship.
"I'm really hoping Brianne will pull through.
"At the start of all this I used to think this was the end all the time, but you kind of force yourself to go into a zombie-like state and get on with things."
Dean, 26, said: "It does feel like we've been put through the mill this year but we're optimistic about the future."
Maria Cartmill, consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at the QMC, who operated on Brianne, said the little girl was admitted with symptoms and signs of grossly raised intracranial pressure – pressure within the head.
A brain scan showed an extremely large brain tumour which was partly solid and fluid filled.
"She was taken to theatre for immediate drainage of the cyst in order to try and let down the pressure within her head and stabilise her condition. I believe she was christened outside theatre. These cysts do not 'pop', they just increase in size and cause more pressure. Brianne's condition was life-threatening and it was uncertain if she would survive the night.
"She was kept sedated on a life support machine until her condition improved and more detailed scans were obtained. My colleague, Mr Donald Macarthur, and I then operated to remove as much tumour as we considered safe without causing significant brain damage. Brianne is now having chemotherapy, the tumour that is left is being closely monitored by scans to check its response to this – and may require further surgery in the future.
"Her future remains uncertain but we are all delighted she is spending more time at home."
