Parents honour Shropshire teen who died suddenly from undiagnosed brain tumour

On Tuesday, the parents of Ellesmere teenager Ella McCreadie placed 11 tiles on the Wall of Hope at the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) to represent the 11 days of research they are sponsoring in Ella's memory.

The 13-year-old was found unresponsive in her bed in December 2022, with autopsy results revealing her death was a result of a haemorrhage caused by a brain tumour.

The Centre of Excellence at ICR focuses on finding a cure for paediatric high-grade gliomas – the deadliest of all childhood cancers, and the type which killed Ella.

Ella was a fun-loving, active and healthy girl – a loving daughter and big sister to Shay and Niall, who were seven and 10 respectively when she died.

In the days before she passed, Ella seemed to have a bit of a sickness bug.

Her mother, Sophie Penrose, said: “She’d spent a lot of the weekend riding her horse Bliss and was perfectly fine, but on the Monday, Ella was sick and remained off school until the Thursday, vomiting from time to time, but totally fine in between.

"She then had a day back at school feeling OK, so I thought things were looking up, but after school she was sick again and for the very first time complained of a headache, so I gave her some pain relief and tucked her into bed as usual.

"I remember thinking I’d get Ella an appointment with the GP the next day just for a check-up. But devastatingly the next morning was too late.

"As broken as I am, I would have been even more broken if Ella had lived to endure endless operations and treatment, knowing she didn’t stand a chance of surviving this awful tumour and knowing as a mother there was nothing I could have done to help her.

"I try to comfort myself that Ella died peacefully in her sleep.”

Since Ella died, her heartbroken family has set up a fundraising group called Ella’s Army which has raised more than £47,000 for brain tumour research, much of it last September when they hosted a Walk of Hope around The Mere in their home town.

The walk attracted more than 700 people and raised in excess of £30,000. It is being held again on Saturday, September 28 this year and registration is open via walk-of-hope.org

During the visit from Ella's parents, it was revealed the centre had received a half a million pound funding boost which will help test new treatment options.

Her father, Alastair McCreadie, said: “This is wonderful news which will bring much-needed hope to families affected by a brain tumour diagnosis.

“Funding into research to bring about better outcomes for brain tumour patients has been woefully neglected for years. We’ve seen radical improvements in survival rates from leukaemia and breast cancer due to substantial investment into research, but not for brain tumours, where treatment options have barely changed in decades.”

On average 420 children in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour every year. One in three children who die of cancer are killed by a brain tumour.

On their visit, Ella’s parents met Professor Chris Jones who leads the research team at ICR, toured the labs and spoke to scientists about their work to find a cure for the disease.

Sophie said: “I hope the money we’ve raised, with the help of our super-supportive community in Ellesmere, is life changing. It won’t bring Ella back, but I hope it makes a difference for families in the future.

“It is heartening to hear from the scientists about the work being done in their quest to find a cure, which can’t come soon enough.”

Louise Aubrey, community development manager for Brain Tumour Research, said: “We are delighted that the team at ICR has been granted this significant amount of money to further their work in identifying new treatments for brain tumours in children and young adults.

“We are leading the way in researching paediatric brain tumours which affect around 420 children in the UK every year. And we’re really grateful to Sophie and Alastair for their fundraising in Ella’s memory and hope that the visit to our Centre of Excellence at ICR offered a useful insight into all we’re doing to improve treatment options for patients and, ultimately, find a cure.

“Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet just one per cent of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease since records began in 2002. This has to change.”

To donate to Ella’s Army fundraising for Brain Tumour Research go to justgiving.com/campaign/ellasarmy