When Althea Overbey read about teenager N’Keema Virgil’s battle with brain cancer, she knew she had to meet her.

The 62-year-old was diagnosed with a tumour the size of a grapefruit at the base of her skull almost 30 years ago — and is still here to tell the tale.

Yesterday, she and 13-year-old N’Keema met at the offices of The Royal Gazette to share their experiences and talk about how the future can still be long and bright after a brain tumour diagnosis.

The pair found they had much in common — including that both were treated by doctors in Philadelphia, both have scars on the lower right side of their heads and both have been helped enormously by their religious faith.

Ms Overbey contacted this newspaper after reading our article last week about Dellwood Middle School student N’Keema, who was airlifted off the Island on New Year’s Eve 2012 after her paediatrician spotted a mass on the back of her brain on an MRI scan.

The youngster was taken to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where she was found to have two rapidly growing, malignant brain tumours, known as medulloblastoma.

She had urgent, life-saving surgery, followed by radiation and chemotherapy, and was declared cancer-free earlier this year, after amazing doctors with her ever-present smile, bravery and resilience.

Ms Overbey was diagnosed with a meningioma brain tumour in 1985, when her son Jerome was aged just three months and they were living in Philadelphia.

She had been suffering from terrible pains in her head, blurred vision and nausea, which doctors had attributed to stress over her marriage break-up.

But while taking Jerome to the Children’s Hospital for a bad chest cold, she collapsed at the wheel of her car and was admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania next door.

She wrote a piece for RG Magazine in 1995 about her experience, describing how doctors told her the tumour at the base of her brain was “the largest [the doctor] had ever seen. It was the size of a grapefruit”.

Next year, Ms Overbey will have been cancer-free for 30 years and she said she hoped N’Keema and her mother Richelle Virgil would take strength from her story.

She told N’Keema: “When I read your story, I said ‘that’s where I was’. I just wanted your mom to know that and you to know that. You can look at me and say ‘Ms Overbey did it, I can do it’.”

The special education teacher said Bermudians often put a brave face on their problems and she was “just forced to get better” and raise her son.

“I had to get on with my life but I have been fine. I don’t take anything for granted. I have brought up my son, bought a beautiful house, travelled around the world.”

Ms Virgil said: “It’s inspiring. This is such an encouragement that somebody had this that long ago. It’s almost 30 years ago that they went through this same situation and just came out of it.”

She said she had been overwhelmed with the “phenomenal” support she’d received from the public since last week’s article was published.

And she added that Ms Overbey’s story was proof that “cancer doesn’t mean it’s a death sentence”.

N’Keema said she enjoyed meeting Ms Overbey and having a photograph taken with her. The teen described the photo as “picture perfect” and thanked Ms Overbey for taking the time to share her story.