A young mum was given just three months to live after being told she was “too young” to have breast cancer and is making her children memory boxes to remember her by. Ashleigh Ellerton, 29, was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer five years ago 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 the brain and spinal cord – and there are no treatments for it. Now Ashleigh is continuing to make as many memories as she can with her husband, Simon, 37, and their four children – aged 11, 10, nine and five.
Ashleigh, a former carer, from Bridlington, Yorkshire, 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.”
Ashleigh started feeling a pain in her breast and found a small lump in December 2019 but 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. She said: “I am quite stubborn, so refused to leave until they’d sent me to the breast clinic.”
Ashleigh was sent for a mammogram, multiple ultrasounds and a CT scan. Eventually, in March 2020, Ashleigh was diagnosed with breast cancer and told she will need chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a mastectomy.She said: “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.”
She then went through six rounds of chemotherapy, 15 rounds of radiotherapy and a mastectomy. Ashleigh was given the all-clear in December 2020 and married Simon, a former trainee butcher, in 2021.Ashleigh said: “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.”
In 2022, the mum was in severe pain and had to have her gallbladder removed after developing sepsis. During her surgery, doctors found secondary breast cancer in her liver. She was told it was metastatic breast cancer and she had 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.”
Ashleigh’s mum, Steph Allsopp, 44, a full time carer, decided to set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family to spend as much time together as possible. Strangers have donated over £11,700 which has allowed Ashleigh to take her kids to Harry Potter World, Disneyland, London and on the Polar Express.
In 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 now had three months left.
Ashleigh 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. She said: “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. She said: “I would want them to remember I was present and that I fought as hard as I could.”
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.”
You can donate to the Ellerton family, who are hoping to take their dream trip to Scotland on GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ashleigh-and-her-children-make-memories