A five-year-old girl, described by her parents as a “Little Firecracker”, is struggling with an ultra-rare brain tumor, defying obstacles after receiving a diagnosis of 12 months of disease.
Rosie Hassal from the Cheshire began to experience severe headache and unusual eye movements in November 2024.
Initially, doctors suspected migraine, a situation that runs in the family. However, the symptoms of livelihood deteriorated.
Her headache became so acute that she struggled to cry, laugh or sneeze. A subsequent eye test detected suspected nerve damage, leading to MRI scan.
Just three days before Christmas, the devastating diagnosis came: a kiwi -shaped brain tumor. A biopsy confirmed that the tumor was cancer, inactive and incredibly aggressive, developing within days or weeks.
Rosie’s parents, Charlotte and Stephen Hasal, both 36, were told that their daughter’s pregnancy was nine to 12 months.
The rarity of his position makes pregnancy uncertain, motivates the family to share its story to raise awareness and potentially helps others to face the same fight.
They are clinging to the hope that livelihood will defy obstacles and “will prove doctors wrong.” The family appears to be induced with spontaneous symptoms, when the importance of frequent medical attention was exposed when facing unexpected health concerns.
Charlotte told PA Real Life, “Rosie is a fighter, we can see how much it has fought and I am hoping that she proves them wrong and they can learn it.”
“She will be the one that occurs through it, but you never know and if it is not, we can help other families we are doing.”
In November 2024, Rosie began to experience pain in his head and strange eye issues.
Charlotte said, “We did not think about it at first, but in the next few days, the pain deteriorated.”
“We were having tea one night and he said that he had learned to go to cross-aid, but his left eye really pinged in another way.
“When we realized something happened.”
Charlotte took Rosie to appoint a doctor, where it was thought that she could experience migraine – a condition that runs on both sides of the family.
He also visited an optiasis, Vision Express, but could not find a reason for the symptoms of livelihood because both his eye and vision were functioning normally.
Rosie then began to be “really unwell” and the family took him to Leon Hospital in Cheshire, where he was prescribed with antibiotics after doctors found white spots around the neck – but Charlotte said “she really never got up from there”.
He said, “He had 27 episodes of this pain in his head and doctors said a little about what it could be,” he said, he was also advised to give Rosie Calpol to help in the pain.
“She was just very bad, rolling about pain on the floor, she was really uncomfortable and really quite stressed.
“She tried to cry, but it was very painful, she could not laugh or sneeze because it hurt.”
After taking the second eye test from Specsavers, where Charlotte said that her daughter’s symptoms were “very worse”, it was thought that Rosie suspected nerve damage in her left eye and was sent to an ophthalmologist.
Rosie conducted “completely” tests before being sent to MRI scan to Leton Hospital on 19 December.
The family achieved the results of the scan on 22 December, with a six-percent tumor in her brain.
“Everything just stops, everything calms down,” said Charlotte.
“I argued with him at that time and said that they are wrong because they have only scanned, they cannot be correct with a scan.”
On the same day, Rosie scanned an MRI in contrast – where a dye is injected to make certain tissues and blood vessels and is shown more clearly – before the family was sent to the Elder Hey Children Hospital in Liverpool and the presence of the tumor was confirmed.
The family was able to return home for the Christmas day, but he needed to return to the hospital by Boxing Day to live on a biopsy on 27 December.
On 26 January, the family received an official diagnosis of Rosie, a pediatrics’ new unit “of Bithalamic Gliota.
According to brain tumor research, Bistalemic gliomas are incredibly rare tumors that diagnose less than 1 percent of brain tumors.
Stephen said, “We were told that it was inactive from the beginning because the tumor sits, we were told that it was a very aggressive tumor.”
Cherlot said: “He said that it was truly a matter of days or weeks that it could have happened and could have increased very quickly because the symptoms had just arrived.
“Even though he has a pediatrician Bistalemic glioma, it is a new unit, it is a very rare form of cancer that he has found – when you Google it, you cannot get much.”
Rosie’s chemotherapy treatment will continue after already undergoing radiotherapy, and it will be scanned every three months to monitor the development of the tumor.
The family was informed that the average disease diagnosis for Bithalamic Glyomas is between nine to 12 months, but they remain positive because they know that Rosie is “a fighter”.
“Rosie is incredible and she has tried to carry only as much as she can, she is such a difficult cookie,” said Charlotte.
They hope by sharing Rosie’s journey, other future will benefit from further research and information.
“If someone knows something else about his cancer, we can learn from it and help other families,” Charlotte said.
The family has launched a gofundme page for support as Charlotte and Stephen have stopped work to take care of Rosie and helped him enjoy the days that he is away from the hospital, growing more than ยฃ 33,000.
To know more, visit the fundriser for the family here: gofundme.com/f/support- Rosie-and-hamily-through- brain-cancer
