Charlotte had lots in common with many teenage girls. She loved fashion, make-up, music and cats, and planned to go to college to study beauty therapy. She believed passionately in justice and fairness, and that kindness was an essential part of life. She was beautiful in every sense of the word, and loving and beloved.
Her world, and that of her family, fell apart in July 2013, when after suffering headaches for four months she was diagnosed with a grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma with spinal diffusion. Over the 951 days the astrocytoma developed into a deadly grade 4 glioblastoma.
Despite this shattering diagnosis, Charlotte began to vlog via YouTube, talking to other young people about her experiences of life with cancer – and living life to the full, despite her condition. Her voice has reached out to nearly 27.5 million people worldwide. Charlotte continued to vlog almost until the very end of her life, sharing conversations that were heartwarming, funny, emotional, poignant, and at times deeply sad. Today, Alex and Miles (Charlotte’s mother and Charlotte’s brother) continue to keep her channel alive as a lasting resource for young cancer patients and their families.
Since there is limited funding for brain tumour research, our charity has decided to support brain tumour developments at King’s College Hospital, London, with the aim of maximising impact. King’s is one of the leading surgical centres in the UK and provides services for paediatric patients as well as teenagers and adults. It has surgical theatres, critical care, neuro radiology, neurological histopathology, and a dedicated molecular laboratory all on site in the same hospital. It is not usual to find all this on site, co-located in a single hospital. It is therefore an ideal location to test anything new, such as surgical techniques or diagnostic tests, and the team supporting these endeavours are constantly trying to innovate and maximise on this. By Charlotte’s BAG supporting developments at King’s, it is supporting the cutting edge of developments that go on to be rolled out across the rest of the UK and the world.
The big difference with Charlotte’s BAG is simple: we self-fund. We take no salaries, we do not advertise nor sell merchandise, and we pay our overheads personally, rather than using money raised. We believe this is the best means of ensuring that all donations go to life-changing research.
Charlotte’s BAG is a registered UK Charity: 1169419.
Along with bravery and a spirit of hope her videos communicated a sense of dignity while being disabled. Putting on makeup when you’ve just had brain biopsy and your vision is blurry is actually one part of that..
I wish I actually knew Charlotte. She was such a beautiful young lady inside and out, which says a lot about her sweet family.
To this day, whenever I feel especially low, I find that by watching videos on Charlotte’s channel I’m able to pick myself up…
Even when her body was failing on her, she made sure we were updated. And she was taken away, so quickly… it’s made me fight more.
Life is a constant struggle so I have some understanding of what Charlotte’s family went through and will continue to go through for the rest of their lives.
Charlotte showed immense strength, told it like it was and if Charlotte could do it then I, at 62, could do it too! I cried along with her and for her, I felt for her when things were not going well.
