When Yasmin’s mum, Louise, looks back at the past few years, it’s hard to believe everything her daughter has endured. Despite months of pain, chemotherapy, and surgery, Yasmin faced every challenge with courage — and almost always, a smile on her face.
It began in September 2019. Yasmin, then an energetic nine-year-old, started complaining about a dull ache in her left leg, just above her knee. It came and went so unpredictably that it was easy to dismiss — after all, Yasmin was an active child, a green-belt kickboxer and a keen swimmer. “We thought it was just growing pains,” Louise remembers. “She’d be fine one day and limping the next.”
Then, on New Year’s Day, after a family walk with their puppy at White Horse Hill, Yasmin’s pain returned with a vengeance. It faded again after a few days — but by late January, when she felt a sharp pain while climbing the ladder to her bed, Louise knew something wasn’t right. Her thigh was swollen.
She called the GP immediately.
After two consultations over several weeks, Yasmin was misdiagnosed — told it was a torn muscle, maybe a strain. The pain grew worse. Then, a stroke of luck: Yasmin’s kickboxing instructor put Louise in touch with a sports physiotherapist, who urged them to go straight to A&E. That advice changed everything.
At the hospital, doctors ran an ultrasound and an X-ray. Something didn’t look right. They referred Yasmin urgently to the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. Early the next morning, Louise got the call: Yasmin had an MRI and chest X-ray booked for that afternoon.
The weekend that followed was an eternity of waiting. On February 10th, they were called back in. The consultant explained that scans suggested osteosarcoma — a rare and aggressive bone cancer — in Yasmin’s left femur. A biopsy was scheduled for the next day.
A week later, the diagnosis was confirmed. The cancer hadn’t spread, but the fight ahead would be long and difficult. “I’ll never forget that meeting,” Louise says quietly. “Yasmin sobbed so hard, asking if she was going to die. No parent should ever hear their child ask that.”
Within days, there were meetings about treatment plans, surgeries, and fertility preservation — too many life-changing conversations for any family to process. Yasmin had a Hickman line fitted for chemotherapy and a procedure to remove and freeze one of her ovaries, giving her the hope of future fertility.
Their world had been turned upside down.
Yasmin’s treatment began on March 6th, 2020, just a week before the COVID-19 lockdown. The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford became their new home, and Kamran’s Ward their second family. The treatment plan: six cycles of MAP chemotherapy — cisplatin, doxorubicin, and methotrexate — followed by limb-salvage surgery to remove the tumour and replace her femur with a magnetically adjustable titanium implant.
For nearly ten months, Yasmin spent three out of every four weeks in hospital. “The ward became our world,” Louise says. “We lived there.”
The first two cycles of chemotherapy shrank the tumour enough for surgery in June 2020 — a milestone that felt like a small victory. “We were relieved to know the cancer was out,” Louise recalls. “But we also knew Yasmin had to learn to walk again.”
The remaining cycles of chemotherapy were grueling. Yasmin endured severe side effects — nausea, vomiting, and mucositis, a condition that left her mouth, throat, and oesophagus covered in ulcers. “She couldn’t eat or drink, and once, she lost 5 kilograms in a week,” Louise recalls. “She had to be put on morphine for the pain, and even that caused complications. It was unbearable watching her suffer.”
There were countless blood and platelet transfusions, nosebleeds, and endless medications. “One day she was taking six sachets of Movicol just for constipation,” Louise says. “It’s shocking what these kids go through.”
Midway through treatment, Yasmin started Mepact immunotherapy — which initially caused chills and tremors but soon became part of her routine. By December 2020, the end was in sight. On Christmas Eve, the phone rang: Yasmin was cancer-free.
Louise cried with relief. “That was the best gift we could ever have wished for.”
By May 2021, Yasmin had finished her immunotherapy and had her line removed — marking the true end of treatment. But the journey to recovery was far from over. “The physical effects are still hard,” Louise admits. “She can’t run with her friends or do PE like before. Her leg strength and flexibility are limited. But her progress has been incredible. Every month, she gets stronger.”
Through it all, Yasmin’s strength and positivity have been extraordinary. “She’s just ten, and yet she’s handled more than most adults ever will,” her mum says proudly. “Even on her bad days, she’d smile. Her resilience amazes us.”
The pandemic meant that much of Yasmin’s journey was endured in isolation. Yet, the kindness of other families and hospital staff became their lifeline. “We met so many amazing parents and children on Kamran’s Ward,” Louise says. “They became our extended family.”
Now, Yasmin is in remission — a bright, funny, determined ten-year-old whose courage continues to inspire everyone around her.
Louise’s message to other families is one of hope and awareness. “At first, it feels like your world has ended. But you can get through it. You will get through the side effects, the operations, even the days when you think you can’t take any more. One day, your story will help someone else believe they can beat it too.”
She also calls for greater awareness of bone cancer symptoms among GPs. “We were misdiagnosed, like so many others. If our physiotherapist hadn’t pushed us to go to hospital, our story could have been very different.”
Awareness saves lives — and Yasmin’s story is living proof of that. Today, her laughter fills the house again. She still dreams big, still pushes forward, and still wears that same radiant smile that never faded, even in the darkest of days.
