When Olivia, 5, was sick I just blamed the weather, but it was cancer and now we’re making precious Christmas memories
When five-year-old Olivia fell ill, her mother thought it was the weather and never realized she had cancer.
With an unknown future ahead, 31-year-old Holly Brown, a single stay-at-home mother from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, now intends to create priceless Christmas memories.
The most prevalent and dangerous type of brain tumor in children, agrade 3 medulloblastoma, was identified in Olivia and eventually spread to her spine.
According to Cancer Research UK, about 52 children in the UK receive a medulloblastoma diagnosis each year.
Holly had to make the heartbreaking decision to either give Olivia chemotherapy, which had a 30% chance of survival, or combine it with radiation therapy, which had a 50% chance but carried the danger of future learning disabilities.
In the hopes of receiving favorable revised test results on December 4, she chose the latter.
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“Most of the time, I just try and hold it together, because you’ve got no choice, really, you just have to get on with it,” says Holly, who is also the mother of Lilly, 12, Mason, 7, and Sonny, 3.
My children depend on me to be the one who is strong, so I can’t break.
There are times when I sit and reflect about everything, cry in private, but I’m only doing what I have to do for Olivia.
“I want Christmas to be extra special for all of the children this year,” says Holly, who is fundraising.
When Olivia started throwing up in the heat in May 2024, Holly initially believed she was having heat stroke.
By June, Olivia was feeling very exhausted and ill every day.
I had a strange feeling in my eye – the next minute I was having brain surgery
When Holly took Olivia to A&E on June 17, the doctors saw that she was unsteady on her feet and that her eyes were squinty, with one seeming crooked.
Olivia was kept overnight for more testing because of signs of a brain tumor, which include eyesight issues and weakness on one side of the body.
Sadly, an MRI on June 18 showed Olivia had a brain tumor.
Holly broke down in tears and added, “I was just devastated.”
Olivia had emergency surgery that same day to install an external ventricular drainage system in order to clear a blockage that was preventing her spinal fluid from draining.
The remaining 5% of the tumor was too near the brain to remove without causing damage, so Olivia underwent an eight-hour operation on June 21 to remove 95% of it.
After a week, physicians told Holly that Olivia had grade 3 medulloblastoma, which, according to Brain Tumour Research, usually develops in the first five years of life and frequently starts in embryonic tissue.
Regretfully, they also told her that her spine had been affected by the cancer.
“I was just so worried, I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Holly sobbed.
I was uncertain about her survival.
Having been a stay-at-home mother for a number of years, Holly found it difficult to explain the situation to her other three children.
Telling them the news was devastating, she added.
I’ve been doing everything I can to reassure her and let her know she can talk to me, but I think my oldest is definitely taking it the hardest because she understands a lot more than the others and can be pretty withdrawn.
Gruelling treatment
Holly decided to treat Olivia with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, which increased her chances of survival but also increased her risk of developing learning disabilities in the future.
We have to consider her quality of life, Holly clarified.
It was so difficult to decide since [doctors] indicated that radiation and chemotherapy could impair her IQ and that she would probably develop learning disabilities.
Holly struggled to come up with a suitable response to Olivia’s condition during this time.
Holly continued, “It’s understandable that Olivia gets really upset sometimes after everything she’s been through.”
She has handled everything really well overall, however she does get a little nervous when she needs to perform things.
I tell her as much as I can in a way that she will understand and that is age-appropriate.
I won’t go into too much detail, but I told her that she has cancer and that she would need to undergo various therapies to get better, which will take some time. That’s about all I can do.
Olivia lost her hair while undergoing two five-day cycles of chemotherapy in August.
She handled it really well, actually. The hospital gave us a children’s book that describes chemotherapy, and Holly says that I believe it helped to calm her down.
She was a little sad about what had happened, but I believe that she didn’t mind too much because she is still young.
I gathered and preserved her hair. I informed her that it will grow back, and I think it could have helped.
Although the doctors informed Holly that the brain tumor had reduced between the two rounds, fluid accumulation made it difficult to determine the precise size of the tumor and the state of the malignancy in her spine.
As part of a clinical trial, Olivia received six weeks of proton beam therapy in September. Proton beam therapy employs high-energy protons to treat cancer.
Olivia had to be tube-fed for several weeks following radiation therapy because she experienced severe nausea and vomiting along with painful, peeling skin.
On December 9, Olivia’s medical team will start six to nine months of more chemotherapy. They have also arranged another scan for December 4 to reevaluate the tumor.
The family is unsure of what the future holds till then.
The hardest aspect, according to Holly, is not knowing; it seems like everything is up in the air.
To turn Holly’s house into a Santa’s Grotto for the month of December, Holly and her mother, Amanda, created a GoFundMe page.
It’s not a good idea to try to take her someplace because we don’t really know how well she’s going to be because she’ll be receiving chemotherapy in December, Holly explained.
We simply wanted to decorate the house as much as possible and create a Santa’s grotto-like atmosphere while doing this.
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Some priceless Christmas memories are what we want.
Visit www.gofundme.com/f/give-olivia-and-her-siblings-the-best-Christmas to make a donation for Olivia’s Christmas grotto.
The most common symptoms of a brain tumour
Every year, around 12,000 British people receive a primary brain tumor diagnosis; approximately half of them are malignant, and 5,300 of them pass away.
According to the Brain Tumour Charity, the condition is the most fatal malignancy in children and adults under 40.
Only 12% of adults survive five years after being diagnosed with a brain tumor, which lowers life expectancies by an average of 27 years.
Non-cancerous benign tumors are the two primary categories; they grow more slowly and are less likely to recur following therapy.
Malignant brain tumors are more prone to recur and can either originate in the brain or spread there from other parts of the body.
According to the NHS, brain tumors can result in headaches, seizures, nausea, vomiting, and memory issues.
They may also result in speech or visual issues, personality changes, or paralysis on one side of the issue.
The following are the top nine symptoms:
- Headaches
- Seizures
- Feeling sick
- Being sick
- Memory problems
- Change in personality
- Weakness or paralysis on one side of the body
- Vision problems
- Speech problems
You should see your general practitioner (GP) if you experience any of these symptoms, especially a headache that feels different from the ones you often get.
From the NHS
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