Girl dies from rare cancer despite getting all clear after having eye socket removed

A British schoolgirl has tragically passed away from cancer after getting the all clear following the removal of her eye socket.

Aleksandra Celic, 15, passed away on 3 November after a six-year battle to save her life from a rare form of cancer that first manifested as a lazy eye.

Facebook / Dana Celic

The teenager was just seven years old when she was diagnosed with an apparent 'cyst' after a lump in her eye was discovered in 2016.

While the lump, which caused the schoolgirl from Bromley, South London, to develop a 'lazy eye' was removed, doctors were baffled when it proceeded to return.

This prompted her mum Dana Celic, 37, to insist on further tests, which revealed that Aleksandra - who was known as Alex - had an extremely rare form of cancer.

She was diagnosed with chordoma cancer following an MRI scan and a biopsy, and doctors were left shocked, as the illness typically affects people aged between 40 and 60.

It is also more commonly found in men than in women.

As if all this wasn't rare enough, the disease itself is typically found in the spinal column.

Facebook / Dana Celic

While Alex's cancer was initially treated with the removal of her eye socket, which doctor's painstakingly reconstructed with a bone in her leg, doctors were eventually left with no option but to remove her whole eye.

Her mum told MyLondon: "When we actually told her eye needed to go. She took it really, really well. She took it better than we did, she was so brave."

After the removal of her eye, Alex was given the all-clear, but tragedy struck in February of last year when a routine scan revealed a mass that turned out to be the cancer.

It proceeded to spread significantly over the next six months and the teen was given the news that it was terminal.

"She must have been so scared," Alex's mum Dana added.

"When they told her that there was nothing they can do she asked, 'am I going to die?', they said yes. I think she was worried at first and then after, she was okay.

"Eventually she became bedbound and she lost feeling in her eyelids so we had to lift up her eyelid. She lost consciousness and was like that for about three days just breathing and coughing.

"On the day that she died. we managed to do some handprints of paint on a canvas with her sisters. And she had a big smile on her face. And then about 10 minutes, later she passed away."

Facebook / Dana Celic

Dana has now paid tribute to her daughter, describing her as a 'shy but loving girl' who wanted to care for everyone she met.

The mum remembered: "She would always help you if she saw you crying or anything.

"I don't know if she had much of a childhood - it was just operations and hospital. But the whole time she was just so sweet, she would always say hello to people and she was just like that."

Further information about chordoma cancer can be found through Cancer Research UK.