New to running, Jasmyn, who works in the NHS as an assistant psychologist, has been training hard. She is determined to fundraise as much as she can for The National Brain Appeal to support the hospital and clinicians who treated Ellie and gave their family five extra years together.
Ellie ran Iron Bodies Gym in Houghton Regis with husband Gavin, Jasmyn’s father. “Ellie was the picture of health – she worked out every day, never smoked, rarely drank, ate really healthily,” says Jasmyn, who had been close to her she since early childhood. “Then one night, in 2016, she had a seizure in her sleep.”
Her symptoms were initially dismissed but she was eventually referred to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, a leading centre for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with brain and spine conditions, where an MRI revealed a benign brain tumour. Within a month, she underwent surgery to remove it and, subsequently a second surgery to treat a bleed on her brain. She recovered well and, for the next two years, life for Ellie, her husband Gavin, Jasmyn and her younger brother, Louis, returned to normal.
In 2018, the tumour returned but the clinical team decided to monitor it rather than intervene until, in April 2019, Ellie and her family were called to the hospital for an urgent meeting following a routine MRI.
“We were going to see Drake that day at the O2. Looking back, maybe it was obvious it was going to be bad news, but we just said, ‘sure, we’re in London anyway, we’ll pop in before we go to the concert,” says Jasmyn. “Ellie walked in and said to the doctors, ‘thank you so much for helping with the DVLA forms. I just got my licence back last week – it’s great!’ and they all looked at the floor. The scan had shown that the tumour had spread all over her brain in different directions.”
The prognosis was poor, but Ellie was determined to try every possible treatment. She underwent an extended course of radiotherapy and 18 months of chemotherapy. Against the odds, in the summer of 2020, Ellie’s MRI was clear. “It felt like a real win,” says Jasmyn.
Life carried on as normally as it could with Ellie being regularly monitored until November 2023 when another MRI delivered the devastating news that the brain cancer had returned, more aggressively than before.
“It didn’t look great. The tumour was deeper in the brain than it had been in the past. It was inoperable; radiotherapy wasn’t safe because she’d had a previous course. So, they said, ‘you’ve responded to this chemo before, let’s give it a go,” says Jasmyn.
“Ellie never wanted to know her prognosis, never wanted to hear the words ‘terminal’ or ‘palliative’,” says Jasmyn. “She just took every treatment they could offer and kept going. In a way, it feels like we got five extra years with her that we might not have had.”
Sadly, neither that chemo or a second kind that she subsequently tried had any impact. In January 2024, Ellie suffered multiple seizures and in the weeks that followed her condition deteriorated quickly.
“Around eight weeks before Ellie passed away, she and my dad had a vow renewal,” says Jasmyn. “The entire thing was planned in a week from start to finish! It was a day full of happiness in the midst of a terrible few months and she loved seeing her friends and family.”
Ellie died on 26 May 2024.
Jasmyn describes her as a calming presence, someone self-contained who people gravitated towards. “She wasn’t always the life and soul of the party, she was the person you could sit with when you needed to feel calm. I was really lucky to always have had an amazing relationship with her. She came into my life when I was one or two years old. So, in a sense, I was really lucky to have had her for as long as I did.”
At Iron Bodies, she was a popular figure. “Everyone at the gym really liked her; she was a tiny woman, 5ft 2, but she almost had more authority there than my dad who is this big bodybuilder.”
At Ellie’s funeral, gym members sent a flower display spelling out “Mrs Iron Bodies”.
“Ellie was particular about charities; she was clear that if I was fundraising it had to be The National Brain Appeal,” says Jasmyn. But Ellie hadn’t anticipated Jasmyn applying for a marathon place, until it featured in one of their final conversations.
“She had a lot of agitation towards the end and one day I was just trying to distract her and said, ‘guess what I did? I signed up to the London Marathon’. She was so shocked, she just stared at me,” says Jasmyn. “I thought she was struggling to speak but then she said, ‘Why have you done that when you can’t run?!’”
Four days after Ellie died, Jasmyn received a call from The National Brain Appeal, offering her a charity place. “It gave me something to focus on during a really difficult time,” she says.
Jasmyn’s early training sessions consisted of 30-second jogs followed by two-minute walks but she gradually built up her endurance and, in February, completed her first half-marathon. On marathon day, she’ll be cheered on by a large crowd of supporters.
“I think I’ll be saying hello to someone every mile,” she says.
Jasmyn is close to her target of raising £5,000, which will go towards brain tumour research. She and her family were shocked to learn that, although brain tumours kill more people under 40 than any other type of cancer, only 1.37 per cent of cancer research funding goes towards brain tumour research.
“There are incredible clinical trials taking place but, without the funding, they simply won’t be able to progress,” says Jasmyn. “The thought of another family losing their Ellie, another child losing their mum, or even another parent losing their child, devastates me when we could be doing so much more. The National Brain Appeal is working to change this and funds research and clinical trials that, quite simply, have the potential to change lives. I’m fundraising to support that work and I hope that one day, no family will have to go through what mine has.”
To support Jasmyn’s fundraising for The National Brain Appeal go to: justgiving.com/page/jasmyn-gibson