Eliza's Story
Eliza's family visited the Cotswolds in August 2025.
Eliza was born in June 2022 to Mum Hannah and Dad Mark and three excited older brothers.
Almost immediately she seemed very uncomfortable and in a lot of pain as she was screaming almost constantly and seemed very distressed.
After 8 weeks of hospital and doctor visits she had an ultrasound that showed she had two large tumours, one on top of each kidney in her adrenal glands.
After three weeks of further testing at Great Ormond Street hospital she was given the diagnosis of stage 4 neuroblastoma with MYCN amplification - an extremely aggressive form of childhood cancer that affects the nervous system.
She quickly had surgery to place a Hickman line and straight away started a brutal regime of chemotherapy every ten days. She coped surprisingly well despite needing lots of blood and platelet transfusions, anti sickness drugs and oral morphine.
In the December 2022 she started high dose chemotherapy, where she had stem cells taken before hand and given back to her after to try to regrow her bone marrow which had been wiped out by the chemo.
In January 2023 she started showing signs of veno-occlusive disease, a liver disease caused by the high dose chemotherapy. She started to turn yellow and her abdomen was very distended with fluid build up. She spent a week in PICU and was able to come back to the oncology ward but unfortunately continued to go downhill.
By the end of Jan she was in so much pain she was screaming constantly. She was given a general anaesthetic to keep her still for a CT scan but when they tried to bring her round she was unable to breathe on her own so was taken to PICU to be put on a ventilator. Despite doing their best there was nothing the doctors and nurses could do and over the next ten days in PICU her other organs also started to shut down and she was taken off the ventilator and died on 6th February 2023.
Since Eliza died she now has another little brother and her parents and four brothers are so grateful to Ben Saunders foundation for their break away to spend much needed quality time together.