Delilah's Story

In September of 2022 we took Delilah into a&e RUH with a suspected rather nasty concussion, nothing could have prepared us for the truth of what our little girl was facing.

The days following are all a horrific nightmare, we were taken off to a quiet room to be told she has a cancerous tumor in her brain and quite possibly on her spinal cord.

Delilah was soon moved to bristol childrens hospital as she started to rapidly deteriorate. In the space of 4 days she went from walking, talking, playing as a normal 6 year old to being unable to move from lying face down let alone talk, eat or drink.

Within a week of her diagnosis she was going down for a 10.5 hour brain surgery. The team worked incredibly hard and thankfully were able to remove the entire tumor safely.

Delilah had a really tough recovery with lots of physical challenges to overcome but she pushed through them all and eventually was allowed to come home.

The next stage was her radiotherapy treatment, she underwent 6 weeks of daily radiation therapy under general anesthesic which really took its toll on Delilah (now 7) with multiple stays in Bristol hospital due to various infections and struggling with the treatment side effects.

We were able to spend December and Christmas at home together which was really special before the next leg of Delilahs journey started.

Soon after new years Delilah went into Bristol hospital starlight ward to begin her intensive chemotherapy and stem cell therapy regime. Her treatment plan being so intensive that she would need to stay in hospital for the entire duration of almost 7 months. Unfortunately no siblings or family besides her parents were able to come on the ward, she missed her brothers, family and home terribly.

Delilah really struggled with the side effects of the chemotherapy and got extremely poorly at times but would always try her best to pick herself up again and really embrace her better days. She really kept the play therapists and hospital teachers busy what with her desire to always have fresh new creative activities to do.

Delilah has now completed her treatments and her most recent MRI came back all clear. She is now back at home with her family happily together. She is slowly but surely recovering and trying to get back to normal 7 year old girl life.

Thank you so much to the Ben Saunders Foundation for granting us a lovely break away this weekend to get some much needed quality time together.