Mikayla was diagnosed with a rare and inoperable brain cancer (a Ganglioglioma) when she was 4 years old.  Ganglioglioma is a rare brain tumour with both glial cells (responsible for providing the structural support of the central nervous system) and neuronal cells (the functioning component of the central nervous system). Ganglioglioma is a low-grade glioma, i.e. it is cancerous but slow growing.

Joss Searchlight met Mikayla when she was just 6 years old. She’d returned to school following a round of chemotherapy which caused total hair loss. Mikayla wore a wig.  Mikayla decided to address the issue of losing her hair to avoid being jeered at. On her first day back Mikayla  told us that she removed her wig and said to her school friends ‘I’m bald, right. I’m bald because of my chemo. I want to tell you this now, I don’t want to tell you this later” . It was such a brave thing to do and it helped Mikayla’s class mates to accept Mikayla’s hair loss and never jeer at her. Mikayla’s return to school was certainly eased by her communication about her issues.

Her mum, Natasha, said: “Following the diagnosis Mikayla was quickly started on chemotherapy and we have had to do six different rounds of it because the tumour just kept growing”.