Difficult decision...Would you tell YOUR child she was dying of cancer? Heather didn't and she believes it prolonged her daughter's life.

Heather chose not to tell her daughter Ellie, who died aged 14, that her condition was terminal.

The question was heart-breakingly blunt. 'Am I going to die Mummy?' Ellie Othick, then aged 12, asked her mother.
Heather took a deep breath and replied: "Some people die of cancer, but lots of people survive it. Would it make any difference to you if someone was to say you only have 18 months or 18 years to live or you will live to be 100?'
Ellie simply smiled at her mother and said: 'I just want to be happy.'
In fact, Heather knew her daughter's brain tumour was terminal. But she decided to hide the truth from her - a decision, she is convinced, that helped prolong Ellie's life.

'Ellie defied all expectations, surviving nearly three years after her initial diagnosis,' says Heather. 'The doctors were astonished and said it was extremely rare for patients with this type of tumour to live longer than six months.
'I'd like to think the reason for this was Ellie's incredible joy for life and because we did not extinguish this by telling her she was dying.
'Ellie packed more into those precious three years than many people do in a lifetime,' she adds. 'We made her life as wonderful as possible and there was lots of fun and laughter and good times.'
None of that seemed possible when the family was first told Ellie was dying, a moment Heather recalls in desperate detail. At the time, Ellie was recovering from a seven-and-a-half-hour operation to remove what doctors suspected was a benign brain tumour, the cause of her recent seizures.
Heather and her second husband, Jason, were awaiting the results of the biopsy. With them were Ellie's father Paul and his wife.

'The consultant said Ellie had an inoperable malignant tumour and it was terminal. It came as a complete bolt out of the blue,' recalls Heather. 'I heard a terrible, anguished cry; and it was several moments before I realised it was coming from me.
'We were devastated. The hardest part was Ellie and her siblings were waiting for us in a nearby room. We spent a long time crying and then, somehow, managed to pull ourselves together to face the children. But we all agreed there was no way Ellie should know she was dying.
'We felt if she knew her condition was terminal, she'd give up hope and become scared, angry and upset. We were not going to take away her childhood; we were going to make her remaining time as carefree and wonderful as possible.
'The drive home that day was the longest journey of my life. Thankfully, I was at the front and Ellie, sat in the back, couldn't see my face.
'When she asked if she had cancer I told her the truth - that, yes, she did have cancer. But then I explained that if there was anything she wanted to know, just to ask me. I was blessed because this answer satisfied her and she didn't need to know any more.

On Valentine's Day this year in the early hours of the morning, Heather tenderly kissed her daughter as she passed away at a children's hospice.
'Ellie always wanted to help others. Her last wish was for her organs to be donated, but because of her cancer that wasn't possible.'