Ashleigh Ellerton, 29, was told to make sure she had everything in order for her children as they grow older after being told the devastating news that she won’t be around for them
A young mum who was told that she was “too young” to have breast cancer has been given three months to live after being diagnosed with the disease. Ashleigh Ellerton, 29, is now making a memory box for her heartbroken children.
Doctors told the former carer, from Bridlington in Yorkshire, five years ago that she had inflammatory breast cancer after feeling a pain in her right breast. But last September she received the devastating news that she had developed a rare complication called leptomeningeal disease – where the cells spread to the tissue in both the brain and spinal cord.
The brave mum is determined to make sure her four children – aged 11, 10, nine and five – have plenty of things to remember her by. She said: “They are the reason I fought so hard and for so long, there is nothing in the world I do that isn’t for them. I do believe they are the reason I am still here.
“I am just trying to make sure I have everything in order for the children as they get older. I am making memory boxes, writing cards so they have birthday cards with my writing. It is about making sure I have prepared the kids for life without me.”
In December 2019, Ashleigh started to feel a pain in her breast and then discovered a small lump in it. But she was initially told by her GP that there was “no way” she could have cancer because there was no history of it in her family.
Ashleigh was not convinced, however. “I am quite stubborn, so refused to leave until they’d sent me to the breast clinic,” she said.
She was eventually sent for a mammogram, multiple ultrasounds and a CT scan and in March 2020 was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her treatment included chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a mastectomy.
She recalled the awful moment: “The words came out of his mouth, but it was sort of like they didn’t. The only thing I could think of was that we had just booked a family holiday.
“It was sort of like unplanning things in my head rather than listening to what the doctor was saying. And then when we left the room, it sunk in. It was almost like it wasn’t happening to me. It was happening to someone else and I was just watching it.”
Ashleigh endured six rounds of chemotherapy, 15 rounds of radiotherapy and a mastectomy and by December of that year she was given the all-clear. In 2021 she then married former trainee butcher Simon.
Still, she had a feeling that this wasn’t the end of her illness. “I was convinced that the cancer was not finished with me. I told my nurses who had come to my wedding that my cancer was going to come back in my liver,” she said.
In 2022, the mum was in severe pain and had to have her gallbladder removed after developing sepsis. During surgery, doctors found secondary breast cancer in her liver and told her it was metastatic breast cancer – they gave her three years to live.
Ashleigh said: “It was a shock but I’d read stories and I’d seen people live a lot longer. So I didn’t think I would die in three years, there is no chance.”
By September 2024, Ashleigh started suffering with bad headaches and mood swings. She was sent for an MRI scan and a few days later was diagnosed with leptomeningeal disease and told she had three months left to live.
She said: “That shock factor was when he said that I had to get my affairs in order and I had three months to live. I then had to go home to tell my children, I remember them screaming. My five-year-old didn’t understand what was going on, but I remember him crying and saying he wasn’t going to see me.”
She had hoped to take them to Disneyland and Scotland when all her children were a little older. “I didn’t have the privilege of waiting until then to enjoy it with them. My biggest goal was to make it to Christmas – it is our favourite time of year, and there was absolutely no way I would pass away before Christmas.
“I didn’t want them to have that over their heads for the rest of their lives. My daughter did ask if Santa could take away my cancer, which I think left poor Santa in a bit of shock.”
Now, Ashleigh is focusing on making her children memory boxes that will last forever – including birthday cards, prom gifts, letters, trinkets to remind them of her and even gifts to eventually give their future children. “I would want them to remember I was present and that I fought as hard as I could, she said.
Ashleigh has donated her biopsies for research and hopes this can help future treatment for others. She said: “I’m just hoping that one day in the future, the things I have done will stop this from happening to another family.”
Ashleigh’s mum, Steph Allsopp, 44, a full-time carer, has since set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family to spend as much time together as possible. At the time of writing, more than £11,900 has been donated.
Click here to donate to Ashleigh’s fundraiser.