'Our little girl kept coming home with bruises. The truth behind her injuries changed our lives forever'
21.08.2022 - 09:21
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
It was a hot July afternoon when Eva Thornley came home with bruises on her legs. Her parents assumed she had been fighting at school. Tragically, their assumptions couldn’t have been further from the truth.
When the bruises never went away, Scott and Katrina Thornley decided to take their daughter for blood tests. The results would change their lives forever. Eva hadn’t been fighting, she had leukaemia.
“It’s like your whole world crumbles,” Scott, 40, said as he recalled the moment he was told the crushing news. “All the worst possible scenarios were going through my mind.
“You just assume the worst straight away as a parent. I felt grief to be honest; it didn’t look like it was affecting me but inside it killed me.
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“Her sister recently went for a blood test and found out she had a vitamin D deficiency, so we thought it might have been a lack of vitamin D. We asked how she got the bruises but she didn’t know. We thought they were from having a fight in school. We didn’t think at all, not even in the slightest, that we would go to hospital and it would be leukaemia.”
Eva, from Tyldesley, was immediately transferred to Manchester Children’s Hospital following her diagnosis. She was then placed on a 10-day chemotherapy course due to the aggressiveness of her cancer. Sadly, the intense treatment means she has lost all of her hair.
Despite her tragic diagnosis, Eva’s family say she is “still smiling and happy,” having just celebrated her 10th birthday on Friday (August 19). “We’re going to spoil her,” window cleaner Scott said ahead of the big day.
“The kids on the ward are so happy and they just get on with it. They’re