Terrifying find in woman’s brain after friends make unsettling joke

Friends laughed at Rosanna when she told them she couldn’t lift her leg after a busy shift. It turns out, her concerns were no laughing matter.

Life for Rosanna Scarcella has always been busy. Operating a family pub business in the north Melbourne suburb of Essendon, the 40-year-old is constantly on her feet, whether it’s running up and down the stairs of the pub 50 times a day, to serving hundreds of customers behind the bar.

Considered healthy and strong, Ms Scarcella was finishing her shift at the pub when suddenly things went awry.

The woman, who was doing upwards of 20,000 steps per day, could no longer lift her right leg.

Rosanna Scarcella was unable to lift her leg after a busy shift working at the pub. Picture: Supplied

The next day, Ms Scarcella (left) fell down the stairs and cut her head. Picture: Supplied

After complaining about her limb feeling “lagging and heavy” to the other staff, everyone first thought it was a joke. However, this was no laughing matter.

“They were all making a joke and having fun about it, but she then got into a bit of pain and it became more serious,” her sister Joanne told Yahoo News.

Trying to sleep it off, Ms Scarcella was relieved when she woke up feeling better. However, as she left the room, she fell down the stairs and was left with a 20cm gash on her head.

It was then she realised the issue was more serious than first expected.

She made a visit to her GP, who told her to visit the emergency department immediately. There, she underwent tests, including a CT scan of her brain, where doctors found a 3cm tumour towards the left side of the brain; it was crushing a major blood vein on the top of her brain and causing severe movement issues.

She underwent tests and scans revealed she had a 3cm brain tumour that was ‘causing the movement issues’. Picture: Supplied

Days after her initial concerns, Ms Scarcella was headed to surgery, where medical staff removed the tumour from her brain.

“This was the day everything changed,” her sister shared in a GoFundMe post. “The sudden shock from receiving such news and realisation that you may never recover to the full capacity that you are used to made everything all the more difficult to process mentally.”

Despite the mass being removed from her brain, when Ms Scarcella woke up from her surgery, she couldn’t move her right foot. Now unable to walk unassisted, life for the Melbourne woman became closer to a nightmare.

Ms Scarcella is afraid her life will never be the same again. Picture: Supplied

Her sister is terrified Ms Scarcella’s brain “may never rewire” and she’ll be left unable to do everything she once could.

Now anxiously waiting for biopsy results of the mass, which will determine if it was cancerous, Ms Scarcella and her family are “just sitting ducks”.

“The doctors are not specifying anything,” her sister said. “The brain is so unique to every patient, I guess they don’t want to confirm anything.”

Her family have set up a GoFundMe campaign to assist with the medical and rehabilitation costs, raising more than $31,000 and surpassing its original $8000 target.

Originally published as Terrifying find in woman’s brain after friends make unsettling joke