Great Barton family express pride as they pay tribute to 15-year-old fundraiser Isobel Sheppard

The family of a 15-year-old Great Barton girl who raised thousands for charity and had her leg amputated during lockdown due to a rare form of cancer have paid tribute to her after she died just before Christmas.

Isobel ‘Izzy’ Sheppard was 12 when she was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, which affects one in a million people, in January 2020, with the procedure to her right leg carried out at the age of 13 in May that year.

This did not stop the teenager from raising awareness about sarcoma cancers and funds for Sarcoma UK, but on December 14, Izzy’s family – mum Sam, dad Elliott and brother Josh – said on their Isobel’s Journey Facebook page that she had died suddenly at West Suffolk Hospital’s Rainbow Ward.

Speaking on Wednesday, the day after Izzy’s funeral, Sam said her daughter was ‘one in a million in so many ways’.

“She had such positivity and dark humour during everything that was thrown at her in life and really did take everything in her stride.

“She truly was the kindest, funniest, sassiest and most amazing girl with a heart of gold.”

Having been given chemotherapy from February 2020 to June 2020 at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, as well as the amputation at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London, the family were told that Isobel was NED – No Evidence Detected – for cancer and it stayed that way for two-and-a-half years, until October 15 last year.

Sam recalled: “Izzy and I went to West Suffolk College in the morning where she was looking at business courses, she went to her friends in the afternoon, had roast dinner at their house and was looking at the stars around their garden fire pit that evening when she felt something was wrong and called us.”

The Sybil Andrews Academy pupil said she felt she was having a stroke, so her parents picked her up and rushed her to West Suffolk Hospital.

After doctors checked her over, including asking her to smile, they saw she had left-hand side paralysis.

Sam said: “It became obvious that something was very much up, though Izzy was very matter of fact about it all being moved from room to room.”

Isobel’s parents were finally told in a small private room that doctors had found a large brain tumour, which was operated on a few days later, two smaller ones at the back of her brain, one in her lung, one on her kidney and one on her adrenal gland.

Sam added: “Afterwards I was talking to the doctor outside the curtain of A&E and Isobel heard and just said ‘Right, so I have a brain tumour then’, that was the way she took it all in – her humour was dark but that was just so Izzy.”

After the news, a wish-list of things Isobel wanted to do was created, with the help of Sam’s sister, Jessica Colson, setting up a fundraising page and charities such as GeeWizz, Make-A-Wish UK and Balls To Cancer getting involved, support flooded in.

The page raised more than £14,000 enabling the family to access a wheelchair accessible vehicle letting Isobel experience such things as a Waldorf Hotel stay, a trip on the London Eye, tickets to Harry Potter and The Cursed Child and an armadillo experience, given by Banham Zoo.

Sam said: “People’s help was just incredible and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts. Those experiences made such a difference to Izzy, otherwise she would have been bed or wheelchair bound at home.

"It enabled us to do so much with her, the things that she wanted to do, and I just can’t thank everyone enough.”

One of Isobel’s passions was dogs and after her parents got her Loki, a cockapoo, at the end of her first set of treatment, Sam decided this time around to reach out to the canine-loving community for help.

She said: “I contacted owners on the Pets for Homes website, explained about Isobel and we arranged puppy parties.

“We did not know these people, but they were so supportive and generous in letting puppies such as dachshunds, pugs and labrotties –rottweiler-Labrador crosses – come to meet her.”

At Isobel’s funeral, at West Suffolk Cemetery and Crematorium in Risby on Tuesday, Sam said the place was packed and that a Sarcoma UK fund-raiser (which can be donated to by clicking here) had more than £2,000 donated already.

She said: “The main hall was full, people were standing at the sides, at the back and in the foyer, it was absolutely incredible.

“There was the headteacher and staff from Sybil Andrews there, people from GeeWizz, those that had helped with Izzy’s fund-raising campaign for Sarcoma UK and the ICE Café in Rougham opened especially for her wake.

“I think that just showed the positive impact Isobel had on people, we are so proud of her and just so thankful and touched by everyone that has supported Izzy.”