Parents of a six-year-old girl are praising a playground game of "piggy-in-the-middle" for saving their daughter's life.

Megan Taylor began hallucinating as she played - which led to her falling ill.

She was later diagnosed with an apricot sized brain tumour - which turned out to have been growing since birth - which began causing her to have seizures.

Parents Barry, 47, and Tracy, 41, realised Megan was seeing things when she started behaving oddly while playing the game in their back garden with her siblings.

The parents reported her unusual behaviour to their doctor and after undergoing an MRI scan she was diagnosed with a benign tumour the next day.

After having brain surgery to remove the benign growth in December, Megan is now recovering at home with her family.

Tracy, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said: “When she was playing piggy-in-the-middle in the back garden with her siblings, she suddenly blanked out.

“She turned to one side and stared at the fence and starting hallucinating, so we knew we had to go to the doctor.

Megan began hallucinating during the game, which she was playing with her siblings in the garden (
Image:
Caters News Agency)

“We were referred from the GP for some further tests, as she had previously been diagnosed as having a form of epilepsy called petit-mal, which was caused by the undetected tumour.

“The day after her MRI scan, Barry and I were told that she had a very large brain tumour on the left side of her head.

“It’s crazy to think that that one game of piggy-in-the-middle saved her life and, although it was devastating, I’m so glad we found out when we did!”

Megan started to experience intermittent petit-mal epileptic seizures in August 2017, which alerted her parents to initially take her to the doctor’s.

However, her ever-growing brain tumour was left undiagnosed until it showed up in an MRI scan eight weeks later.

The tumour was benign but it had been growing in Megan's brain since birth (
Image:
Caters News Agency)

Tracy said: “I was distraught when I was told it was a brain tumour, it was one of those moments you never want to go through.

“But we just had to focus on getting rid of the tumour – so we started discussing her options and found out she’d have to have brain surgery.

“After several MRI scans and EEG epilepsy brain monitoring for days on end record to detect electrical activity in her brain caused by the seizures and how they related to the tumour, she was finally given the go ahead and had surgery for 12 hours.

“The tumour itself was the size of an apricot and it was the same colour as her brain, it was very surreal to see on the MRI scan.

Her parents took her to the doctors and she was diagnosed with the apricot sized tumour (
Image:
Caters News Agency)

“The surgery lasted for just over 12 hours, and they were the most nerve-wracking hours of my life, I kept on thinking the worse.

“Although the tumour was benign, the level of surgery that she was having was still terrifying!”

Now, three months after having the brain tumour removed, Megan is recovering at home with her family.

Despite the tumour having gone, Tracy claims that Megan’s daily life is still affected by the trauma of the tumour removal.

Her parents say the hallucinations were the main detector something was wrong (
Image:
Caters News Agency)

She said: “We are so thankful to that game of piggy in the middle in our back garden.

“It was the main, clear, detector that there was something wrong because it was the first time she hallucinated.

“I think that without that game we wouldn’t have seen the hallucinations, so maybe it would’ve been even longer that the tumour was left growing in her head.

“There’s still difficulties but we’re taking it day by day, and we’re just glad the tumour is gone.”