A MAN who has twice undergone brain surgery has cycled more than 200 miles to raise vital funds for a national charity supporting other sufferers.

Chris O’Neill, 62, has completed the challenge of cycling along the Hebridean Way on a specially-adapted trike. His achievement is all the more impressive given he has had brain surgery twice in the past five years.

Father of three Chris, an architect from Sheriff Hutton, was accompanied by his wife Lesley, 62, and four close friends for his epic challenge. They covered around 40 miles a day over five days, cycling from the southern tip to the far north of the archipelago.

Chris has raised £3,740 to date to be shared between The National Brain Appeal, who raise vital funds for the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in Queen Square, London where he was a patient, and PAUL For Brain Recovery, who provide support for people affected by acquired brain injury in Hull and the surrounding areas.

Following an episode in 2016 where Chris experienced double vision and became unsteady, it was discovered that Chris had a cavernoma, a cluster of abnormal blood vessels, on his brain stem, and it was bleeding.

In early 2017, when steroid treatment failed to get the bleeding under control, Pedro Oliveira Castanho, then a consultant neurosurgeon at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, operated on Chris with a live link to neurosurgeons at The National Hospital for their advice during the complex surgery.

Chris’s wife Lesley said: “It was such a dreadful shock. One minute Chris was working all hours, the next he nearly died. Our three children – Alfie, Harry and Connie – all turned up when Chris was in hospital to support me and take my mind off what was happening.”

The surgeons managed to remove 50 per cent of the cavernoma, so there was a chance it could bleed again. The bleed and then the surgery left Chris with side effects similar to having had a stroke.

Unfortunately, two years later, in 2019, the cavernoma bled again. Mr Castanho was now working at The National Hospital in London and offered to see Chris there. He was admitted to the hospital’s Molly Lane Fox Unit, a dedicated ward for patients with brain tumours funded by The National Brain Appeal.

Lesley said: “It was such a relief that Chris survived. Then, just as we were getting our lives back on track, it happened again. It has been completely life-changing.”

This time surgeons were able to remove all of the cavernoma.

Chris said: “I told them I would rather suffer collateral damage from the surgery than to have to go through it all again, even if it meant I might lose the use of my left arm.”

Chris, who took early retirement after the first operation, was left with limited sensation and restricted movement in his left hand and had severe balance issues. He started the long process of rehabilitation. For the first three months he was in a wheelchair learning how to stand and walk again. At this point he also sought the help of charity PAUL For Brain Recovery to help him to make peace with what had happened to him and to start to see a positive future for himself, his family and friends.

He also set to work on doing his own exercises to try to improve his left hand and had physiotherapy and did pilates classes. He still experiences double vision and uncontrolled eye movement (nystagmus).

While he was in the rehab centre, Chris watched a You Tube video about cycling the Hebridean Way. It became a motivational aspiration for him. He said to himself that he would get better and he would do this challenge.

He had learnt to ride a bike again after his first operation, with the support of a British Cycling coach. After the second operation, his balance and vision were too poor to be safe on a normal bicycle. So, after a bit of research, Chris managed to get a specially customised recumbent trike from Inspired Cycle Engineering (ICE). This has all of the controls on the right-hand side and a support for his left hand.

Chris said: “Once I had the trike I knew I could do it, but we had to put in lots of training before the trip, to make sure that we could keep going.”

Close friends Don and Jenny McMillan and Rob and Anna Fitzgerald joined them for the five-day cycle challenge.

Lesley said; “Chris and I have been on many walking and kayaking holidays together. We were both apprehensive that this may not be possible in the future but our friends, Don & Jenny and Anna & Rob, knew how much this meant to us both, and were very keen to get involved and to help us to complete the cycle challenge.”

Chris said: “It was brilliant having the support and encouragement from our friends, they kept my spirits up when the going got tougher, and helped me to pace myself. They knew how much it meant to us, and did everything they could to make sure that we had a really good time doing it.”

Reflecting on what he has been through, Chris said: “I am extremely thankful for the skill, care and brilliance of our NHS, and particularly the amazing neurosurgeons at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in London’s Queen Square, who literally saved my life twice.

“To give you an idea of how brilliant they are, if this had happened to me a few years earlier it is very unlikely that I would have survived.

“It is testament to the research and development of new techniques and technologies that my surgery was successful.

“I’m so grateful to them and also to the fantastic team at PAUL in Hull, who helped me to get my life back together after the surgery.”