One night when Beth Phelps was getting ready for bed and brushing her teeth, her parents observed a “protruding lump” on her shoulder through her T-shirt.
Up until that moment, Beth was a healthy little girl.
Sadly, after Beth, who was 12 years old, saw a doctor, they found that she had a 7 cm tumor on her left lung that was Ewing sarcoma, a rare and serious type of cancer.
Beth started her therapy right away. She endured surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, and then she was told she was OK.
In June 2022, Beth started to feel pain in her right shoulder. The pain got worse, and an x-ray indicated that the cancer had come back in her second lung. This time, things didn’t look good.
Beth died on October 3, 2022.
Before she died, her parents were able to take part in a trial for therapy. Still, they decided to use palliative care to make “her time left as comfortable as possible.”
“Our world changed completely in an instant,” said Ben, Beth’s father. There was no clear evidence that she was unwell. Beth was a healthy little girl.
But she was able to endure all of the treatment successfully, even though she was afraid of needles. We were shocked and sad to learn that her cancer had returned.
“We’d never heard of Ewing sarcoma before,” the father remarked through tears. That’s why I’m trying to get as much money as I can. We need to figure out how to help more people live better.
“Beth is always my light and my reason to keep going. This could be hard work, but it’s nothing compared to what she went through. We think about Beth every day and are resolved to do something good in her memory.
Ben is now biking from Land’s End, Cornwall, to John O’Groats, Caithness, Scotland, to raise money for the Bone Cancer Research Trust (BCRT).
