My daughter’s footprint will last a lifetime
When teenager Charlotte Eades was diagnosed with a brain tumour, she chronicled her life in a series of personal video diaries. Nearly two years on, her mum Alex is hoping her daughter’s legacy will be to find a cure for the disease
Alex Eades tells us how her late daughter is helping others living with cancer
Alex, 57, a teacher who lives in Brighton, was recently voted Inspirational Woman of the Year by viewers of the Lorraine programme and a panel of high-profile judges
‘Every morning before I go to work, I follow the same ritual. I drive high up to the South Downs in Sussex, a beautiful site where you can see for miles around. It’s the place where we scattered Charlotte’s ashes. Sometimes, I take a bunch of yellow roses with me to place on the ground. I have a little cry and only then am I ready to face the day ahead.
Charlotte died on 24 February 2016, just five days after her 19th birthday, and not an hour passes when I don’t think of her. I can’t imagine that ever changing, but I’m trying to live my life, not least for my son Miles, who’s 23, and husband Terry, who both miss Charlotte terribly, too. It’s important to me to carry on Charlotte’s work to raise awareness of the dreadful disease that took her away from us and to help find a cure.
Charlotte was a beautiful child, who loved horse riding and had a talent for tap dancing. She loved singing and would go round the house singing
Heart Will Go On from Titanic. She was funny too; she and her brother would drive Terry and me mad, talking to each other in silly Pingu voices. We were as close as any mum and daughter could be. Every Sunday, the two of us would drive in to Brighton to go shopping. She loved beauty and fashion, particularly handbags and shoes, and the first place we always headed for was Topshop.
Those trips were important to Charlotte because she suffered from an anxiety disorder. She struggled at school and found friendships difficult.
DEVASTATING NEWS
But then everything changed. At 16, Charlotte had finished her GCSES and was looking forward to the long summer holidays ahead, before starting a beauty course at college. But then she started to experience painful headaches and, after several trips to the GP, who thought they were migraines, she went to hospital for tests. There, in July 2013, she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour.
Nothing can prepare you for the shock of being told your child has cancer. My world crumbled. Terry and I were told first and then it was left to me to break the news to Charlotte. ‘I knew it,’ she said. Somehow, she had guessed that she had a brain tumour. We were both sobbing, scared of the treatment that lay ahead and terrified for her survival.
We quickly entered into a new world of MRI scans, chemo and radiotherapy, which burnt her throat so badly she could barely eat for months. It was an aggressive grade three cancer and the treatment had to be harsh if she was to stand a chance. She lost her lovely dark hair and was in constant pain. At one point she was taking 50 tablets a day.
During scans, I would massage her legs while she lay in the machine, to show her I was there and to comfort her. Afterwards she would say, “I knew you were crying, I could feel your hands trembling”. And she was right. There were so many tears. As a mother all I wanted was to take away her pain and make her feel better, but there was nothing I could do and I felt helpless.
When Charlotte said she wanted to record some video diaries detailing her
cancer journey I was amazed, given her history of anxiety. But she said there was nothing to help teenagers, and thought if she talked about her own experiences it might be useful for others in the same position.
In her first video diary, or vlog, which she made in June 2014, Charlotte talked about her diagnosis and said she would be “a cancer guru”. With the help of Miles, who had deferred his university course to be with his sister, she put footage, taken on her small camcorder, on to Youtube.
From then on, she recorded a new vlog every week, over 100 in total. She talked about relationships, the reactions of other people, losing her hair, her hopes and fears, all with the honesty of a teenage girl. I was so proud of how assured she sounded. And my pride increased when she received so many positive comments. Her story clearly resonated with others. Her following quickly grew until she had thousands of viewers every time she posted a video. Soon she was asked to appear on BBC
Breakfast. From being a painfully shy girl, Charlotte was now brimming with confidence. Cancer had given her an inner strength.
A NEW REALITY
Although she was feeling better throughout 2014, I knew the tumour wasn’t going to go away; the best we could hope for was that it stayed the same. So every twinge was terrifying, every scan or blood test meant an excruciating wait for results.
Then in September
2015 we had devastating news. An MRI scan showed the tumour had mutated to a grade 4, known as “the terminator”. There was no cure. All this time Charlotte had clung to the belief that she would get better, that she would get married one day and have children; now there was no hope. She told us she wanted to drink the bottle of Champagne she’d been saving for when she got the all clear. So that evening the four of us sat sipping champagne while inside our hearts were breaking.
Finally, in January 2016, we were told Charlotte had weeks to live. Not long afterwards she slipped into a coma and died three weeks later in hospital with her dad and me at her side.
Before she died, Charlotte said we might as well delete her videos, but we kept them. I’m so glad we did. They’re at the heart of the charity we’ve formed in my brave daughter’s name, Charlotte’s BAG (Battle Against Glioblastoma). Brain cancer is so under-funded and we want to pay for research into the rare cancer that took Charlotte from us.
Charlotte used to say her life was so short she’d never leave a footprint, but she has – her videos have been viewed two million times. She has left her mark.
I sometimes sit down and watch her vlogs, just to see her beautiful face again and hear her voice. They’re the gift she left and her legacy to others.’
‘All the time Charlotte clung to the belief that she’d get better’