A YOUNG girl has been left mute and unable to walk after “feeling off-balance during PE”.

Lydia Williams’ daughter Amelie, 12, who lives near Wells in Somerset, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, aged 11, after she had an eye check-up in March 2023 and the optician noticed her eyes “flickering”.

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During her athletics training, she began to notice issues with her balance.

However, it wasn’t until a routine annual check-up at the optician that some unusual symptoms were detected.

The following day, she underwent a 10-hour operation to remove an apricot-sized brain tumour.

However, when she regained consciousness, she couldn’t open her eyes for the first 24 hours and had lost the ability to walk and talk.

The removal of the tumour “caused a shock in her cerebellum” – a vital component in the brain which plays a role in motor movement regulation and balance control.

This meant that when Amelie regained consciousness after the surgery, she was experiencing posterior fossa syndrome (PFS), a complication of surgery for medulloblastoma that can cause issues with communication, motor skills, and mood.

The 12-year-old was mute for three weeks, mainly communicating through hand gestures and passing the time by listening to the Tracy Beaker audiobook series.

When she did regain some of her speech, it sounded “robotic.”

Amelie then endured six weeks of “horrific” radiotherapy, which caused her to lose her hair.

This was followed by nine months of chemotherapy and rehabilitation sessions, including physiotherapy to help her regain her movement and strength, as she spent about a year in a wheelchair in total.

Since finishing her treatment, Amelie has started secondary school for the first time on a reduced timetable as she continues to recover.

With hope and determination, she is gradually re-learning her sporting, singing, and beatboxing skills.

“(After my surgery) I couldn’t see anyone. I could sense they were there and I could hear them… but I couldn’t respond,” Amelie told PA Real Life.

She has had to relearn how to do everything again

Lydia Williams

“I felt like my body was a shell and I was trying to call out to my family, but my mouth wouldn’t move.

“When I lost my voice, it was really hard because normally I sing to express myself. If I feel sad, then I sing a song to myself.

“Now I’m going back to school and I’m doing the same clubs that I used to – going back to my gymnastics, going back to my swimming, and I’m just working on swimming techniques.”

Lydia, a 43-year-old teacher, said: “The optician said to me: ‘Just have a little look at this Mum, her eyes are doing something’.

“I had a look and they were tremoring, flickering, and I said: ‘What’s that?’

He replied: ‘I’m not sure, but I think you need to take her to the GP’.”

Amelie had a GP appointment later that day, which led to a referral to Royal United Hospital in Bath, where she underwent a series of blood tests and an MRI.

Once the scan was completed, doctors requested to speak with Lydia – and this is when she received the news that Amelie had a brain tumour, which was later confirmed as stage 4 medulloblastoma.

‘Is she going to die?’

Lydia explained: “I remember the doctor saying to me ‘Is there anything you need to know? Is there anything you want to ask us?’

Lydian asked: “Is she going to die?”

The doctor replied: “We don’t know.”

Lydia called her 50-year-old husband Chris, a yacht captain who was away at sea in Italy at the time, to inform him of the news, and Amelie was taken to Bristol Royal Infirmary via ambulance.

“She wasn’t able to talk, she wasn’t able to move, she didn’t open her eyes for the first 24 hours – she was breathing on her own, that was about it,” Lydia said.

“Ever since then, she has had to relearn how to do everything again.”

Amelie explained that she initially felt “trapped” after the surgery. Although she wanted to cry, she held back her tears, determined to stay positive.

It took Amelie three weeks to make her first sound again, and after two months, she began using words to communicate.

‘MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB’

She added: “I couldn’t talk properly like I am talking now, I was just like a robot talking, and my parents said ‘You had a tumour and the doctors had to take it out, you had cancer’.”

Although the treatment felt like “a mountain to climb,” Amelie said her family, friends, dog Dottie and the digital support groups from Young Lives vs Cancer helped her through it.

She also enjoyed visiting the two ducklings that hatched in the hospital school.

“It was agony for her, agony for me every day, and I would constantly say to her ‘Well, we’re going to go and see the ducks in a minute’, just to try and get her through that,” Lydia said.

“We used to talk about when we could walk the dog again and when we could go and lay on the field in the sunshine and smell the fresh grass – all those things that you just miss when you’re in that artificial environment.”

Gradually, with speech and language sessions along with physiotherapy, Amelie began to regain her movement and ability to talk.

Her little brother, Arlo, 10, even assisted her with some exercises at home and helped take care of her.

Since finishing her treatment in March, Amelie has continued her rehabilitation and started secondary school.

She’s also rejoined local clubs she used to attend and has been teaching herself to sing and beatbox again.

Amelie said artwork has been essential to her recovery and she would strongly advise other children with cancer to talk to “somebody that’s going through a similar thing to you” and to hold on to “hope”.

She said: “I was scared but I would always tell myself ‘Hey, it’s all going to be okay.

‘You’re going to get better and go out of the hospital and be able to do the stuff that you did before’.

“I’d like to shout out Caroline, Alban, Tia, Boheme, Aisha, and Lily, and a special thanks to my best friend Olive who has been by my side since the beginning.”

Lydia added: “I think cancer scares everybody, children and adults, and it carries with it a lot of negative connotations… but now, being a family that’s gone through something like that, I also feel that cancer isn’t the end.”

Amelie and her family were supported by the charity Young Lives vs Cancer. To find out more, visit: www.younglivesvscancer.org.uk.

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WATCH as a woman with a massive keloid protruding from her neck finally gets the skin growth removed.

Olivia, a 28-year-old nurse, grappled with the growing keloid over the course of four years.

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Starting out as a spot, it gradually swelled to the size of a satsuma and left Olivia feeling increasingly self conscious.

“It can be exhausting, trying to constantly be brave, and trying to hide it,” she said.

“It’s my face, this is what everyone sees!

“Often at the end of the day the tears may come, it makes you sad,” an emotional Olivia reflected.

Not only that, the nurse was constantly catching her seat belt or face mask on the growth, which at times became unbearably itchy.

After years of emotional and physical discomfort, Olivia decided to visit consultant dermatologist Dr Emma Craythorne about finally having the keloid removed.

The nurse’s story features in a brand new episode of The Bad Skin Clinic, as the first instalment of the seventh series airs tonight.

The new series will see Dr Craythorne help patients with a number of growths and skin ailments.

“When a skin disease affects the face it can be devastating,” the dermatologist said.

“Not just physically, but also emotionally and socially.”

Though Olivia was desperate to have her keloid removed to improve her self-confidence, the specialist nurse also visited Dr Craythorne for practical reasons.

The growth had gotten so large it has started to impact her work supporting patients with learning disabilities, as well as her everyday activities.

“My keloid… it really does get in the way. I often get my seatbelt rubbing on it.

“If I’m trying to wear masks or PPE at work, I’m quite uncomfortable with it,” the nurse explained.

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Olivia’s keloid also got unbearably itchy at times, leaving her in a frenzy of scratching.

“I’m always rubbing it,” she said.

“It’s like an itch and I can’t stop doing it.”

In an initial consultation at the clinic, Dr Craythorne confirmed that Olivia’s growth was indeed a keloid.

To Olivia’s surprise, Dr Craythorne pointed out that the growth could have been triggered by something as inconspicuous as a small acne spot on her neck.

“Essentially the cells that we have responsible for making a scar are called ‘fibroblasts’,” she explained.

“If you cut yourself, or you have an injury, they start repairing that wound, and then once the injury is healed over, it stops repairing.

“But in somebody who has a tendency to keloids, those fibroblasts don’t stop making scar tissue. So in your case this a genetically-inherited tendency.

“I suspect you might have even had a spot, like an acne spot or something like that. Something really little, and that’s been enough to provoke this response.”

Olivia got yet another surprise when the dermatologist revealed that she would be able to remove through surgery that very same day.

“I know you don’t want it there, but it’s grown in such a beautiful way and does not seem to be going deep into the skin nearby,” Dr Craythorne told the nurse.

“This is a really nice keloid that should get a good outcome from surgery.”

Not expecting to go into surgery that day, Olivia was happy at the idea having the keloid removed and at the same time anxious about the surgery.

“I’m sh****** myself,” she told the dermatologist as she arrived at the theatre, prepped and ready for her op.

QUICK WORK

After injecting the keloid to numb it, Dr Craythorne started making slow and precisely incisions to the keloid with her scalped, which she told Olivia was “fairly superficial”.

“We’re not having to really dig deep down into the skin to find all the roots of it,” the dermatologist explained.

“This is where my yoga and Pilates comes into play,” she joked as she manoeuvred herself around Olivia to get to the keloid from different angles.

Dr Craythorne sliced the little “spud” all the way off before long and stitched up Olivia’s neck, asking the nurse to move her chin to make sure the skin wouldn’t pull.

“Welcome to your new face,” she told a beaming Olivia, handing her a mirror.

Following the op, Dr Craythorne reflected: “When somebody has something that’s different about their face, it has an effect on them.

“Our face is so important to us in terms of communication, in terms of breathing, in terms of speaking, in terms of touch, all of these things.

“But also crucially, it’s a point of contact that people look at, so it’s not the same as having a lump growing somewhere else.

“When it’s right in the middle of your face, it has an impact in all of those ways.”

CONFIDENCE BOOST

Olivia was back at the London clinic two weeks post-op for a check-in.

“I’m just looking forward to showing Dr Emma how my face is getting on.

“Colleagues have mentioned how great things are looking, I even had someone at the chip shop say ‘ooh your thing’s gone!’,” the nurse said.

“Honestly, I feel like people are actually looking at me and talking to me as opposed to looking down at my neck,” Olivia told the dermatologist.

“My lanyard, it’s not getting stuck, it’s just sliding on…seatbelts… even like a bag, I can wear it on this side.

“Before I could never wear a bag this way. All these kinds of things, I’m so so happy,” Olivia went on.

Olivia’s surgery also boosted her self-confidence.

“I feel so pretty,” she said.

“Having it gone is literally life-changing for me. I’m so much more confident, I’m not conscious when I’m taking pictures or even when I’m walking around.

“I’m not really trying to cover my face anymore.

“My life now is amazing. I’m feeling great, really confident, really happy. Just excited for the future!”

The Bad Skin Clinic airs on Really on Tuesdays at 9pm and is available to stream on discovery+.