Glenn Colmer struggled with headaches but was told he likely needed new eyeglasses
The father of two had a sudden seizure and was diagnosed with a devastating brain tumor
His widow, Ali, says he kept reaching for her and their children’s hands as he was dying, “squeezing tightly as if to say ‘goodbye’ ”
A father of two died less than a week after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Glenn Colmer, 51, struggled for a year with headaches and body aches but was told to take pain medication. Some of his issues were chalked up to needing new eyeglasses, his wife, Ali, said, according to The Daily Mail. But that all changed when, on February 18, Glenn had a sudden, debilitating seizure at home in the English city of Southampton.
He’d just gotten up that morning and started to put his bathrobe on when he suddenly froze, Ali said. “I asked if he was okay. He replied, ‘No, I’m not,’“ she said, sharing that he began shaking and gasping for air. “I called an ambulance, staying calm for his sake, whispering words of reassurance until help arrived. The paramedics were quick to respond. Although the seizure had passed, Glenn was in visible pain, particularly in his arm, which had locked during the seizure. His eyes were vacant.”
“The trauma was immediate and life-altering,” said Ali, who explained that scans showed that he had a mass on his brain. Four days after he arrived at the hospital, on February 22, Ali, Glenn, and their two children, Grace, 19, and Joe, 16, were given the devastating news: The mass was a high-grade glioma brain tumor.
As the Mayo Clinic explains, it’s a bleak diagnosis: “There’s no cure for glioblastoma. Treatments might slow cancer growth and reduce symptoms.”
The news, Ali says, was “horrendous.”
“My world fell apart. The doctor tried to explain the scan. Glenn didn’t want to look. He couldn’t. He wasn’t ready. His expression, once so full of life, humor, and warmth, was robbed from him, replaced with silence and vacancy,” she said.
When he was discharged and sent home for his final days, it was “unbearable” for “fit and healthy,” Glenn, who had worked as a Director of Curriculum for Sports and Protective Services at Itchen Sixth Form College, where he’d been a teacher for 20 years.
“His right side remained weak, and the vibrant man who once did every sport imaginable now needed help with the most basic tasks,” she said. “He refused visitors. He didn’t want people to see him this way.”
Glenn’s pain escalated, and on February 25, he was rushed back to the hospital where doctors confirmed he had a brain hemorrhage.
“He kept reaching for my engagement ring and the children’s hands, squeezing tightly as if to say ‘goodbye.’ He placed my hand on his heart, as if to say, ‘Thank you.’ Though no one had said it yet, I could see that Glenn was dying,” said Ali.
“Even as his body began to shut down and he was unable to speak, Glenn remained present. He kept reaching out, holding hands, squeezing gently,” said Ali.
Glenn died on February 28; a GoFundMe has been established to raise funds for a memorial bench in his honor.
“Glenn was more than his diagnosis. He was a mentor, a joker, a passionate teacher and friend,” said Ali who added that more than 500 people attended his funeral. “He touched lives across the world. He made people feel seen, valued, and inspired.”
