Before 15-year-old Isobel Sheppard passed away from an extremely rare cancer, she left a file on her phone entitled, 'If I Die Young'. The teenager from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, had been diagnosed with synovial sarcoma in early 2020 after she suddenly struggled to walk. In the file she detailed she wanted memory jewellery to be given to her friends and a celebration of her life with fireworks to be held on her birthday each year.
Her mother, Sam Sheppard, along with two other women in the county, are keen to educate people on this rare cancer during Sarcoma Awareness Month this July. At the end of 2019 when Isobel was 12, she complained her left leg had been feeling numb, but Mrs Sheppard said the family was not too concerned. However in January 2020 while at school Isobel rang her parents to say she could not walk.
After several hospital scans, an eight by five by 13 centimetre tumour was found in her groin which Mrs Sheppard described as "completely out of the blue". Isobel had synovial sarcoma - a type of cancer that develops in cells around joints and tendons - which the family had never heard of. She soon after underwent chemotherapy and had her entire left leg amputated.
"Isobel was an absolute warrior," Mrs Sheppard said. "She did have down days but she coped with it admirably throughout," While the treatment was initially successful for two years, Isobel unfortunately relapsed in October 2022 with several tumours found across her body. "The x-rays they do every three.
