THE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE WITH CANCER

More than 12,000 people are diagnosed with brain tumours each year in the UK. Two mums tell us how the cruel disease changed their lives forever

- KERRY HARDEN

My girl was smiling until the end’

Emily Morton, 27, from Louth, Lincolnshire Stroking my little girl’s brow, I watched her sleeping peacefully, clutching her Elsa doll. At just two years old, Lily was such a happy, smiley little girl who loved Disney princesses and singing nursery rhymes. She meant everything to me and her dad Josh, 27. But now, as I watched her sleeping in the hospital bed, I wondered how my precious little girl, so full of innocence, could fight something so deadly.

It was early 2022 and Josh and I had just been told that Lily had a cancerous brain tumour - a stage three ependymoma.

It had come following months of tests, after Josh and I had noticed that Lily kept stumbling, and her head would tilt to the left side. She had had surgery to remove the tumour, and now a biopsy had revealed our worst fears.