A 10-year-old girl from Heswall, Merseyside, has died from a rare and aggressive brain cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), after a 16-month battle. Lucy Moroney was diagnosed in July 2017 and underwent pioneering treatment in Monterrey, Mexico, which initially showed promising signs of improvement. However, she took a sudden turn for the worse this week and passed away on Friday evening.
In a heartbreaking Facebook post on the Lucy's Pineapple fund page, her father paid tribute to his 'perfect daughter'. He wrote: 'Lucy, when you were born almost 11 years ago Mummy and I (mainly Mummy) chose your name, knowing the meaning of it was light.' He described her as 'caring, beautiful and with the most pure heart', adding that he would 'never get over losing you, but I'll also never get over loving you'.
The tragedy comes nearly six years after the death of Lucy's mother, Nicola, who died aged 33 from a sudden cardiac arrest caused by an undiagnosed heart condition. At the time, Nicola was 24 weeks pregnant with another daughter, Ruby, who lived for just 14 hours after an emergency Caesarean section. Lucy was four years old then, and her sister Amy was nearly two.
Lucy's father wrote: 'Having witnessed Mummy and your sister Ruby take their last breaths six years ago, it was traumatic and heartbreaking once again to witness you do the same - even with nearly 16 months warning.' He expressed his sorrow at not being able to stop the disease but said he would not hesitate to do it all again because 'you were perfection'.
Despite her illness, Lucy left a legacy: a book titled 'The Spider and the Whale', which she wrote while receiving treatment in Mexico. The book is now available for purchase. DIPG has a zero percent survival rate in the UK, and Lucy's family hopes her story will raise awareness of the devastating condition.
