During a routine eye check, an optician noticed something weird in Amelie Williams's eye. The then 11-year-old was later diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. Said tumor eventually left her mute and unable to walk after surgery. Through therapy and rehabilitation, Williams was able to talk and walk again.
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Amelie's diagnosis came after her mother, Lydia, took her daughter to a routine eye check, unsuspecting of what was happening in her daughter's brain. "The optician said to me: 'Just have a little look at this Mum, her eyes are doing something'," said Lydia, recalling how it all started, according to Mail Online. "I had a look and they were tremoring, flickering, and I said: 'What's that?' And he said: 'I'm not sure, but I think you need to take her to the GP'."
Lydia did just that and Amelie was then tested. Doctors found a stage 4 medulloblastoma, a type of brain cancer. Symptoms caused by medulloblastoma are varied. According to Brain Tumour Research, problems with walking, coordination issues, stumbling, falling, blurry vision, and, in the case of Amelia, abnormal eye movements. Reportedly, she also felt balance issues while performing her athletics training.
Following her diagnosis, Amelie underwent a 10-hour surgery that removed an apricot-sized tumor from her brain. While the surgery removed the tumor, it had several serious effects on Amelie's health. Not only did Amelie was unable to open her eyes for a full day, but she became mute and unable to walk. This set of symptoms aligns with posterior fossa syndrome, a medulloblastoma surgery complication.
Learning To Walk (& Talk) Again
Amelie recalls the moments after her surgery. "(After my surgery) I couldn't see anyone. I could sense they were there and I could hear them... but I couldn't respond," said Amelie. "I felt like my body was a shell and I was trying to call out to my family, but my mouth wouldn't move."
Amelie even tried to pick herself up when things started to become too hard to handle. "When I lost my voice, it was really hard because normally I sing to express myself," said Amelie. "If I feel sad, then I sing a song to myself."
After a six-week break, Lydia underwent six weeks of radiotherapy and nine months of chemotherapy. As a result, Amelie lost her hair and felt sick throughout. Lydia was able to provide emotional support for her daughter, encouraging her to continue and fight.
"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," said Lydia.
Thankfully, Amelie's language and physiotherapy sessions helped her regain her ability to talk and walk, respectively. While her rehabilitation continues, Amelie is now able to go back to school and resume her normal activities, little by little.
"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," said Amelie.
Lydia reflects on Amelie's ordeal in a touching way. "I think cancer scares everybody, children and adults, and it carries with it a lot of negative connotations.," said Amelie. "But now, being a family that's gone through something like that, I also feel that cancer isn't the end."
