WHEN Estelle Wignall started experiencing bloating and stomach pain, her mum immediately whisked her off to the GP.
But doctors dismissed the 22-year-old’s symptoms as (IBS), telling Bev Turley her daughter was simply “being dramatic”;.
After repeated visits, Estelle picked up a leaflet in the surgery’s waiting room and instantly knew what was wrong.
“She diagnosed herself with ,”; mum-of-four Bev, from Wigan, tells Sun Health.
“We all thought she was too young to have cancer, and doctors kept telling her it was IBS.
“But when the tests came back and confirmed Estelle’s fears, we were devastated.”;
Following her diagnosis in February 2017, Estelle had a , along with her right ovary and fallopian tube.
She recovered well, and continued to work as a receptionist and a country singer in the evenings.
Estelle then met her husband Mike Wignall, 25, and was determined to start a family.
“She was warned she would struggle to conceive because of her surgery but she fell pregnant three months after her wedding, and she was thrilled,”; Bev, 59, says.
In May 2020, Estelle welcomed her daughter Brooke into the world.
During the birth, the midwife noticed nodules on her cervix, and Estelle had a – a surgical procedure to remove the womb – shortly afterwards “just to be on the safe side”;.
Weeks later, the new mum was feeling constantly exhausted.
“She kept blaming it on the diet she was doing to lose her baby weight,”; Bev says.
Eventually, Estelle underwent testing in November 2020, which confirmed her cancer was back – and this time it was terminal.
“We were heartbroken, but Estelle was very positive,”; hr mum says.
“She began raising money for charities and she was offering holistic therapies to women undergoing cancer treatment.
“She was so well, and we started to think she could beat it. She loved being a mother so much and Brooke was her focus.”;
Further scans in 2021 revealed almost all the tumours had gone, except for a small area in one lung.
Estelle was then given the choice of whether to have surgery.
Bev says: “She wanted to be cancer-free so she went ahead with the operation, even though she was feeling well and healthy.
“However, the surgery was a disaster. She picked up an infection and then developed , and she just never seemed to recover from it.
“She moved from the hospital back into the family home so that I could care for her.”;
She’d fought so hard, and she was such a beautiful girl. It felt impossibly cruel, especially for Brooke.
Bev
Estelle died on March 30, 2022, aged 27, leaving two-year-old Brooke without a mother.
“Our lives were shattered,”; Bev says. “I could not believe she was gone. It still breaks my heart.
“She’d fought so hard, and she was such a beautiful girl. It felt impossibly cruel, especially for Brooke.
“We have a pillow with Estelle’s face on for Brooke and I talk about her mummy all the time to her.
“For me, it’s like having Estelle back as a little girl; they are so similar.”;
Estelle, who was Bev’s only daughter, had loved to sing since she was a child, but her music went on the backburner through her illness.
“She had a beautiful voice,”; Bev says. “She was a typical girl, very glamorous, and loved being the centre of attention. She was always doing karaoke.
“She even got a spot on as a teenager, but she was overawed by it and skipped the audition and we went shopping in instead.”;
DAUGHTER’S VOICE
Bev wasn’t sure she would ever hear her daughter’s voice again.
But earlier this year, on the third anniversary of Estelle’s death, she received a call from a music producer and songwriter, Neil Treppas, announcing that Estelle had written and recorded a secret song before she fell ill the second time.
Bev heard the tune for the first time on Mother’s Day.
“I knew she’d been working on a song, she’d never done that before, but when the cancer came back, I forgot all about it,”; she says.
“Neil hadn’t wanted to contact us because he worried it might upset us.
“But three years on, it felt like the perfect time to release it.
“The first time I heard it; I just broke down. It was so lovely to hear her voice, yet incredibly sad that she wasn’t here with us.
“The song is precious, and I feel like it’s her gift for me. It is like she is letting us know she is still here.
“She loved to be the centre of attention, and now, she is again.
“She lives on through her beautiful daughter and through her music. The song is something I will always treasure. And in time, maybe Brooke will be a singer too.”;
Proceeds from the single will be donated to ovarian cancer charities.
- I Never Lost Anything, by Estelle Wignall, is available now on Amazon and Spotify.
