A schoolgirl in London has died of a rare cancer after having her eye removed, despite being given permission. Aleksandra Celic, 15, died at home in Orpington on November 3, six years after she was first diagnosed.
Her family has praised her as a “shy but loving girl”, MyLondon reported.
Aleksandra, known in the family as “Alek”, was just seven in 2016 when she developed a lump in her eye that doctors said was “just a cyst”.
She went to her local GP and complained of a “lazy eye” and a lump behind her eye, which she had removed – but it kept coming back.
After her mother Dana Celic, 37, insisted on an MRI scan and a biopsy, it revealed a diagnosis of chordoma cancer.
The cancer is very rare, with about 20 cases diagnosed in the UK each year. It’s a slow-growing bone cancer that usually occurs in the spine and usually occurs in people between the ages of 40 and 60, more commonly in men than women – making Alek’s case even rarer.
Alek underwent multiple treatments, including having her eye socket removed, reconstructing a bone in her leg, and finally having her entire eye removed.
Her mother told MyLondon: “When we actually said to get her eye out. She took it really, really well. She took it better than us, she was so brave.”
Because she didn’t have an eye, she was bullied at school by other students, her mother added, which Alexandra found difficult to talk about for fear it would make her family even more concerned.
Alek got permission and as the years passed, the family kept hoping that the worst was over.
But then in February 2021 something was picked up on a scan after a routine check. Doctors said they were not worried and Alek went back six months later for another checkup. The mass on the scan had grown significantly. The chordoma cancer had returned.
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Alek had most of the treatments here in the UK but was told there was nothing more they could do. Alek passed away peacefully on November 3rd.
Mother Dana said, “She must have been so scared. When they told her there was nothing they could do, she asked, ‘Am I going to die? They said yes. I think she was worried first and then, she was fine.
“Eventually she became bedridden and lost feeling in her eyelids, so we had to lift her eyelid. She lost consciousness and was just breathing and coughing for about three days.
“On the day she died. we managed to make some paint handprints on a canvas with her sisters. And she had a big smile on her face. And about 10 minutes later she died.”
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Mother Dana said Alek had a loving family, including father Milan, 39, and sisters Valentina, 12, and Angelia, 11. The family described her as a “shy but loving girl” who wanted to take care of everyone she met.
Dana added: “She’s shy when she meets new people, but once you get to know her she’s really fun. She’s really caring. So she would always help you if she saw you crying or something.
“I don’t know if she had a lot of childhood – it was just surgeries and hospital. But all the time she was just so sweet, she always said hello to people and she was just like that.”
The family is now raising money for funeral expenses and the remaining donations will go to chordoma cancer research in the UK. You can find their GoFundMe here.