Emily's Story

in March 2023, after three weeks of headaches and after 4 trips to the doctors, we decided to take matters into our own hands and took our 9 yr old daughter Emily to Musgrove Hospital.

She was in hospital all day and after tests we were told she had a brain tumour, late the same evening she was whizzed up to Bristol childrens Hospital for an emergency operation on her brain.

The doctors had to put a drain into her brain to release the fluid that had been building up due to the tumour. Emily spent two weeks in Bristol Childrens Hospital where the amazing doctors and nurses looked after her and inserted a shunt into her brain so she was able to move around.

We went home after two weeks back to somerset and then returned two weeks later so she could start her treatment.

Emily underwent 33 sessions of radiotherapy and a round of chemotherapy. After 7 weeks of living in a young Lives V cancer house in Bristol we were able to come home!

Emily was then switched to the team at Musgrove Hospital and underwent another round of chemotherapy. She finished her chemo in Dec 2023 and all of her Mri’s have so far been stable or shown shrinkage.

Emily is back at school full time (muchto her disgust!) and is at the moment doing really well, although she has to have growth hormone injections everyday (she does them herself) due to her pituitary gland refusing to do its job ( probably due to radiotherapy).

Through all of this Emily has been amazing, calm and accepting of what needed to be done, she has also spent the last almost 2 years raising money for different charities that have helped up and so far she's raised over £7000.

We are all so aware that things might be so different if it was not for the superstars at BCH and Musgrove, We are so grateful for the help we have received from wonderful charities and look forward to spending time in Bens holiday home.