True-life
We’re fighting for our lives together
Abbi Ritson, 22, Didcot
Waving, I watched as my little sister was pushed in her wheelchair up the ramp to her school bus.
‘Bye Ella. See you later,’ I called.
It was summer 2008, I was 6, Ella was 4.
At just 6 weeks old, she’d been diagnosed with a brain tumour and surgery complications when removing it left her unable to walk or speak.
But her beautiful smile lit up the room.
Every day with Ella was a blessing.
And every morning I’d wave her off to school.
Sadly, that’s where my memories of Ella end.
Her tumour returned and she died from it in 2009, aged 5.
Mum Katy, then 28, and Dad Kevin, then 31, put on brave faces for the rest of us kids – me, then 7, Libby, 4, and Harry, 2.
But the house felt different after that.
We talked about Ella all the time but it felt unfair she was taken so young.
I’d wonder, Why Ella? Why our family?
I didn’t expect I’d ever learn the answer.
Then, years later, in 2018, when I was 16, we were all sat round the dinner table when Dad cleared his throat.
‘Kids, there’s something I need to tell you,’ he said.
We already knew that a few months earlier his dad Vic, our grandad, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
‘Grandad’s cancer is caused by a rare genetic mutation,’ he started. Known as Li-Fraumeni syndrome, or LFS, it meant he’d been born with a hugely increased risk of developing cancer.
Every day with my little sister Ella was a blessing
It was probably why Ella had died of the disease.
And it meant that there was a 50% chance of us inheriting LFS too.
‘I’m being tested to see if I have the genes,’ Dad said. ‘Me and Mum think you guys should too.’
One morning soon after, I woke up to Mum beside my bed clutching a plastic container.
‘Spit in that, love. You’ve got to do the test on an empty stomach,’ she said.
It felt surreal. Could spitting in this pot really tell me if I’d face the same battle as my baby sister?
A month later, in January 2019, we had a family trip to the Royal Nuffield Hospital.
Results day.
By now we knew Dad’s tests had come back positive – he had the cancer-causing LFS gene so I’d mentally prepared myself for bad news.
‘I’m sorry but all three of you have the gene,’ the doctor told me, Libby and Harry.
I looked at my siblings, taking it all in.
Only about 600 people in the UK had LFS.
In that way, we were really unlucky.
But we were lucky too. We were all in this together and unlike with Ella, we knew what we were facing.
LFS meant our tumo
