My gorgeous 12-year-old son’s harrowing question after shock diagnosis will stay with me forever, he never moaned once

A BRAVE MUM has candidly opened up about the traumatic months leading up to the death of her 13-year-old son – and the harrowing question he asked her after his diagnosis.

Speaking to Kelsey Parker, 34, on Podcast Mum's The Word, Louise Fox shared the inspirational yet heartbreaking story of her son ‘Gorgeous George' and his devastating illness.

Louise, from Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire, is mother to three children – Jamie, 21, Issy, 14, and George, who devastatingly passed away aged 13 but would have turned 17 this November.

She spoke to her friend Kelsey, who was previously married to Tom Parker of boyband, The Wanted, before he tragically died from brain cancer in 2022, at the age of 33.

Tom left behind Kelsey, their daughter Aurelia, five, and son Bodhi, four.

George's story

In April 2021, then-12-year-old George, affectionately dubbed ‘gorgeous George' by his family, started to complain of frequent headaches.

Soon after, these painful headaches were accompanied by sickness and nausea – a sign that was an immediate ‘red flag' to Louise.

Becoming increasingly concerned for their son's health, Louise and her husband Matt Fox, rushed George to A&E.

But George was misdiagnosed for a month, with health professionals advising that he was suffering from ‘migraines' and dismissing worries of something more serious.

Louise explained: “We kept saying, ‘we think he's got a brain tumour, we think he's got a brain tumour,'

“One of my friends lost her own son to a medulloblastoma about seven, eight years prior to that – she told me that the symptoms were headaches, sickness..

“And when the sickness happened, that was a massive red flag for me, and we took him straight to A&E, but they did all the neuro observations on George and he passed with flying colours – well, he was still passing those when he was about six months into the journey.”

Unconvinced of the doctor's migraine diagnosis, Louise pleaded with medics to arrange an MRI for George and eventually they managed to get one booked in for the 29th April.

But George was left ‘really poorly' in the lead up to the appointment, and Louise could see he was suffering.

“He was waking in the morning, and jumping out of bed at like five in the morning, because the pressure had built up so much overnight, where he was laying down, he was like jumping out of bed, holding his head – and I knew these were all signs, and my doctor said ‘it is not a brain tumour, my dear.'”

But the doctor was wrong, and as Louise suspected, the MRI revealed George had a tumour in his left parietal lobe – and by the time he had his scan, the growth was between five to six cm large.

He was rushed to Addenbrooke’s, where surgery revealed George was suffering from a rare and aggressive glioblastoma brain tumour.

“And when he first had the surgery to remove it, on the 19th May in 2021, we didn't know what we were dealing with at that point, and they were so positive – they said ‘we've removed more than 99%' and they couldn't believe it, he was literally up the next day in intensive care, walking.

We just felt so positive, we just thought ‘he's going to beat this'

Louise Fox

Despite George's strength and resilience, all was not well and his tumour grew back “within three to four weeks”.

Louise had been advised to take George along with her to find out his prognosis, and described the way she was told as ‘inhumane'.

“I will never forgive them, ever, for telling me to take him to that appointment.

“He was sat outside a door, they said ‘can we just have a quick word with your mum and dad, George?'

“And he sat out there on his own, and they told us that he had 12-15 months to live.

“So, George was messaging me from outside the room saying ‘mum, I'm really scared, why are you in there so long?'

She described herself as being in a ‘blind panic' when doctors told her she needed to break the news to George before he researched it himself and wouldn't ‘forgive' her.

Faced with a decision no parent should have to make, Louise and Matt agreed not to tell George that his illness was terminal, saying they needed him to have ‘hope'.

“George did say to me, when he first got diagnosed, ‘am I dying?'

“I said ‘George we're all dying, and we're going to get you the best care that there is in the world.”

Brave George told his parents he wanted to fight, “never moaned once” and believed he would survive.

But the pre-teen was up against ‘the most aggressive tumour' his medical team had even known – and a cancer that's known as ‘the terminator' due to its 0% chance of survival.

Everything was stacked against him.

Louise Fox

He endured “about four brain surgeries in eight months” along with weekly blood tests, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Just 11 and a half months after his diagnosis, George passed away in April 2022, leaving Louise and her family “completely broken.”

“But we could not have lived through those 11.5 months if we didn't have a little bit of hope, we just wouldn't have been able to survive.”

In memory of ‘Gorgeous George'

Louise has since founded The Angel Mums – a group of mothers who have all lost a child to a brain tumour.

The group have raised over £160,000 for the Tessa Jowell Foundation Children's Centre of Excellence, through various stunts such as wing-walking, crossing hot coals and climbing Yr Wyddfa (formerly known as Mount Snowdon).