When a 40-year-old father could smell bleach in his home, he initially thought that his wife had been cleaning. However, he later learned that this was a symptom of a heartbreaking diagnosis.
In early 2020, Sam Suriakumar, then 35, began feeling unwell after noticing a strange chemical scent in his home.
Per PEOPLE, Suriakumar has just assumed that his wife, Sindhu - with whom he shares daughters Avaana, 10, and Arya, 8 - had been cleaning the family's bathroom
“I’d been smelling a strange smell and feeling really unwell,” he shared with Brain Tumor Research. “It was a smell like ammonia or bleach, and it felt like a cleaning agent was filling up my mouth. I now know this as a symptom or a warning sign called an ‘aura.’”
At the time, the self-employed recruiter and musician, based in Worcester Park, south London, thought it was nothing serious. But the following day, he experienced the same smell while lifting weights at the gym and was overcome by dizziness.
Later that day, during his commute home from central London, Suriakumar suffered a violent seizure on the Tube. "I closed my eyes and it felt like half an hour went by, but we had only moved one stop,” he recalled, per Daily Mail.
He later learned he’d collapsed, dislocated his shoulder, and experienced two more seizures en route to the hospital.
At St. George’s Hospital in Tooting, doctors initially found little on early scans, but further testing revealed a mass on the left side of his brain.
On February 4, 2020, Suriakumar was diagnosed with a glioma - a type of brain tumor that forms in the brain or spinal cord.
“My mind went straight to my girls, who were only three and five at the time,” he said. “All of a sudden, your priorities become very clear.”
Doctors told him the tumor was growing like a cobweb and sat in areas that control speech, memory, movement, and emotions, making it too risky to remove surgically.
“If I did have an operation, it would only be possible to remove 40% of the mass,” he said. “It felt like life had stopped, and I was in a dark tunnel with no light.”
Despite the shock, Suriakumar began tackling the tumor with a combination of seizure medication and close monitoring. For two years, his condition remained stable, and he even completed the 2023 London Marathon to raise money for Brain Tumor Research.
But while attending a wedding in Brazil in July 2023, he received news that the tumor had begun growing again. “It knocked me off my feet,” he recalled.
He underwent a biopsy the following month, and the tumor was diagnosed as a diffuse oligodendroglioma, a form of glioma that is typically slow-growing but can be cancerous.
He was treated with 30 sessions of radiotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital, followed by nine months of chemotherapy, which concluded in September 2024. “The chemotherapy made me really sick,” he said. “I lost around 44 pounds.”
Despite the grueling treatment, Suriakumar maintained his commitment to fitness. In April 2025, just six months after treatment, he completed the HYROX fitness competition in Belgium, a race that combines 8 kilometers of running with eight intense functional workouts.
Suriakumar is now in a monitoring phase, and has check-up scans every six months. His most recent in May 2025 showed stability.
“Forty was always a big benchmark number because of the poor survival statistics for people with brain tumors,” he said. “When I was first diagnosed, I didn’t even think I’d see the end of the week. So getting to celebrate my 40th birthday on July 26 has been a massive dream for me.”
He’s since become a public ambassador for Brain Tumor Research and has raised more than £60,000 ($79K) for the charity through various initiatives.
“I want to provide encouragement and inspiration to others, in that we can fight and we don’t have to let it define us,” he told PA Real Life, The Independent reported. “Hold on to hope and positivity in whatever way you can.”
For anyone facing a similar diagnosis, he offered this: “It’s not going to come every single day, but try to find those things that inspire and encourage you to help you move forward.”