For most parents, the festive season packed full of joyful pantomime visits, frantic shopping sprees and days spent watching seasonal films on the sofa.
But for Ashleigh Stading, 29, and Stephen Molyneux, 37, from the Wirral, Merseyside, this year’s celebrations have been blighted by unimaginable heartache.
A heart-breaking image shows their desperately ill three-year-old daughter Edie in Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool.
The youngster has been put under sedation so medics can check how much an aggressive and inoperable tumour in her brain has grown — which could leave her with just weeks to live.
This heartbreaking picture shows desperately ill three-year-old girl in Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool – under sedation so medics can assess a deadly tumour in her brain
‘The Spider-Ede Appeal’. So far, an incredible £45,445 has been raised in just two weeks since the appeal was launched
Edie’s mother said she would hide under a blanket or somewhere dark, which made her parents think that she was suffering from migraines
The clinic in Mexico have received all of Edie’s medical information, scans, videos of her and have agreed to proceed with treating her brain tumour
There are limited treatment options available in Britain so Ashleigh and Stephen’s are now trying to raise £300,000 to fly Edie to Mexico for pioneering treatment.
‘When the doctor told me that they found a tumour it was like my whole world had ended,’ Ashleigh said in an exclusive interview with FEMAIL.
‘I can’t even describe it. I felt like my body was screaming, like my heart was physically in pain.
Ashleigh Stading, 29, pictured with her daughter Edie Molyneux, three, who has recently been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour
‘We are so strong as a family, but sometimes I’ll just look at her when she’s asleep and I’ll think how innocent she is and I’ll just start crying.’
Ashleigh described how over the last few weeks the family had been coming to terms with the diagnosis.
She said: ‘I was watching these children in the play and asked myself will I ever see Edie like this because she may never get to that age.’
This summer, Edie, who is sister to Niamh, four, and Lenny, one, first began suffering with excruciating headaches that would leave the three-year old clutching her head, screaming in pain.
She would hide under a blanket or somewhere dark, which made her parents think that she was suffering from migraines.
Ashleigh, who suffers from migraines herself, took Edie to the GP. Doctors were almost certain that Edie’s pains were indeed migraines, but suggested an MRI scan to be sure.
Edie is unable to undergo chemotherapy because the amount needed to shrink the inch-long tumour would poison the rest of her body
Ashleigh took Edie to the doctors after she started getting serious headaches that would leave her screaming with pain. Doctors later discovered the rare tumour
Edie, left, with her older sister Niamh, four, right, and younger brother Lenny, one
An MRI scan revealed that Edie (pictured left) had a brain tumour called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG)
Ashleigh, who works as a nursery nurse, continued: ‘We were waiting for the MRI results and I was in the playroom with Edie on the ward. Because we were just ruling things out, I was there on my own.
‘The pediatric consultant and the nurse came down and he asked if Edie would be okay to stay with the play workers and asked could I come and have a little chat.
‘My heart just there and then just dropped. My whole body went cold, I knew something was wrong.’
The location of the tumour, known as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), means it cannot be operated on and surgically removed.
Chemotherapy is not an option because the amount needed to shrink the inch-long tumour would poison the rest of her body.
Doctors have said that Edie’s life expectancy is from between six weeks to three years
The whole family pictured on a family outing. Pictured, Ashleigh, 29, with Niamh, four. In the background from left to right: Edie, three, Lenny, one and Stephen, 37
But the family have discovered a treatment only offered in Mexico that could shrink her tumour
Instead the couple are hoping to fly Edie to Mexico for ground-breaking intra-arterial chemotherapy, which will directly target the tumour with chemotherapy.
On a fundraising page, the family praise the positive results this treatment has had in similar cases.
So far, an incredible £45,445 has been raised in just two weeks since the appeal was launched.
Ashleigh admits that neither her or Steve are sleeping because when they aren’t frantically researching the condition, they are fundraising to pay for the treatment abroad.
She said: ‘We sit looking at her and you wish you could reach into her head and just pull it out. To be that close to this thing that is killing our daughter but not being able to do anything about it is so painful.’
The mother-of-three said she worried about the effect Edie’s illness has on her other children, too.
‘We are trying so hard to stay cheery and positive for the other children, and make sure they are getting a fair share of attention too.
‘Lenny is just one, so my worry is will he even remember her? And that is just horrendous to think about. Will he remember that she was even here?
‘Edie and Niamh are best friends, they sleep in the same bed by choice, and everywhere they go they hold hands and cuddle. We know we will have to have a conversation with them both at some point, which is going to be heartbreaking.’
In what Ashleigh described as fate, during one hospital appointment she met another family whose daughter was also battling the same illness.
Edie, right, with her sister Niamh. Ashleigh said they sleep together every night
Without the treatment, Ashleigh explains that there is no other option and Edie will die
Ashleigh added: ‘It was completely by chance that we bumped into Lucy [Moroney] and her dad at one of the hospitals.
‘We were very early for our appointment and he was quite late, so had we both been there at the time of our appointments we wouldn’t have met.’
It was Lucy’s father who told the family about this treatment in Mexico that is apparently helping with his nine-year-old daughter’s tumour.
Ashleigh said: ‘We’ve called the Spider Ede appeal because she absolutely loves Spiderman. If Mexico doesn’t happen she will die. There’s no ifs, no buts, no options.’