On December 14th 2006, my wife Dawn gave birth to beautiful twin girls. After a long labour Destiny Mai made her entrance first and I was so happy to hear her healthy cry. Next came Liberty Rose but unlike her sister she didn’t make a sound. She wasn’t even breathing. I’ll never forget her tiny blue and lifeless body. I willed her to breathe but as the seconds ticked by I didn’t think she would make it. Then she opened her mouth and took a deep breath and the sound she made brought relief to our hearts. I knew then that our Libby was a fighter.It was weeks before we heard Libby’s cry again. Not because she was unwell but because she was a truly angelic baby. She fed easily and slept through the night and hardly made a sound. She was a dream and our other children Alex and Jemma fell in love with her and Destiny just as quick as we did. We were happy and complete.Then something odd began to happen. I noticed it and so did Dawn but it was only when our daughter Jemma asked us hat was wrong with Libby’s eyes that we admitted there was something wrong. Libby’s eyes had started to wobble slightly from side to side and it didn’t seem like she was focussing on things. While Destiny had started to grab at toys that we dangled in front of her, Libby would try but miss. Not only that but she couldn’t hold down her milk and vomited regularly.We took her to a doctor at our local surgery who examined Libby and told us there was nothing to worry about. He prescribed Gaviscon for the vomiting and said that Libby would catch up with her sister in time and promptly sent us home. We weren’t happy. We knew there was something wrong with our daughter. The next time our health visitor came to seethe twins we explained our concerns and asked her to take a look. When she had examined Libby she agreed there was something that wasn’t quite right and said se would refer her to an eye specialist.Four weeks passed. Every day we expected the telephone to ring or a letter to fall on the doormat but nothing happened. We started to get desperate. Libby had begun to have brief fits aswell. Dawn called the hospital and was told that they had never heard of Liberty Rose. The health visitor had simply forgotten to refer her. Angry isn’t strong enough to describe how I felt at this point. Not only had the G.P let us down but the health visitor had too. Needless to say she was no longer welcome in our house, and we were given a new health visitor called Helen who quickly restored our faith in the health service and got Libby referred to Derby Hospital.By now the twins were four months old and Libertyâ??s eyes had started to shake violently from side to side and she was even having brief fits. We were terrified of what could be wrong but tried to stay calm for each other and the rest of our family.At Derby Hospital Liberty was seen by a specialist and diagnosed with severe Nystagmus. She booked her in for a CT scan and sent us home. We were left to do our own research on Nystagmus helped only by Helen. We discovered that a small percentage of Nystagmus was caused by brain tumours. I looked at Dawn and saw her crumble inside. I told her that we shouldn’t panic, it was highly unlikely, and our Libby wouldn’t have a brain tumour, she was just a baby. I said all the right things, all the things I knew I had to say to convince both her and me to stay calm, but deep down I knew – I just knew.Three months passed and we tried to keep everything as normal as possible. We had days out, had friends over to visit and felt the joy of seeing our two babies grow and change. We heard nothing from the hospital. We called and called but were given excuse after excuse for why nothing was happening.The twins were eight months old and it was a hot August. Dawn’s mum Jackie had returned from a trip away with sun hats for the twins. After three weeks Libby’s no longer fitted. In fact it barely sat on the top of her head. Her head was getting rapidly bigger. Looking back, I think we had noticed Libbyâ??s head size but were too afraid to voice our observations. We knew what it suggested.We called Helen who came round immediately and measured Libbyâ??s head. She was alarmed and phoned our local surgery where a locum, Dr Bevon, phoned Derby Hospital and demanded they give Libby an immediate MRI scan. Just hours later we had an appointment for the very next day.Sadly upon arrival the specialist said that he had never heard of us or our appointment but reluctantly accepted to see us. He examined Libby and concluded that she probably had Hydrocephalus (too much fluid on the brain). He organised an MRI scan in the place of the CT scan weâ??d never had.A week later Libby had her MRI. She had to be given a general anaesthetic so that she would stay still enough for the scan and the day was long and emotional. It was hard to see our tiny daughter in that big horrible noisy machine, even though we knew it would reveal what was wrong with her. Two days after the scan the eye specialist called and I prepared myself for whatever I was about to hear. He told me Liberty had a small lump on one of her optical nerves which was causing the Nystagmus. I asked him to clarify what he meant by a lump and he said that although it would be labelled as a tumour it was nothing to worry about. We would be referred to Nottinghamâ??s QMC but only to monitor the ‘Lump’.Dawn was at work where I called her and told her to listen carefully and stay calm. I tried to imitate the specialist by making it seem a small problem, an insignificant lump. I remember telling her everything would be okay, they were only going to monitor her so it couldn’t be serious but she broke down and immediately returned home to be with our daughter. She has never gone back.Within 24hrs we were requested to attend ward E39 at the Queen’s Medical Centre where we met the neurosurgeon Maria Cartmill. It was from this point that people stopped failing our daughter. This woman, this surgeon will always hold a place in our hearts for the care and attention she paid Libby right from this first meeting.Maria looked at Libby and at Destiny, and told us that she believed Libby’s sight was so poor she should be registered blind. She ordered another MRI for Libby which happened two days later and then we returned home to try and digest what it meant that our precious angel couldn’t see.When a few days later we arrived for our next meeting with Maria, she took into the nurse’s station and closed the door.What she told us shattered our world. The tumour was no small lump, and it was not situated on one of Libby’s optical nerves. In fact it was the size of a tennis ball and filled the whole of the space called the optical chiasm behind her eyes. She showed us the scan and we saw in horror how tendrils of the tumour were threading it’s way into everything around it, making it impossible to remove.I can’t describe how we both felt at that moment. Suffice it to say that was the lowest point of both of our lives. The only way now was up. We had something to fight and fight we would. Libby had a brain biopsy. Seeing our baby daughter lying there with bandages round her head and her eyes bruised and swollen I couldn’t keep the tears from falling. I just wanted to hold her and keep holding her until this nightmare was over. There are many photos of Libby from this time, I’ll let them do the talking. They say more than I can ever say with words. Libby recovered so quickly from the biopsy we were amazed. When the results came back we were told that all it could tell us was that it was an optic glioma and that our daughter would never regain her sight. While Libby started on an intensive course of chemotherapy which inhibited her growth and progress, Destiny grew health and strong and did all the things that toddlers did. Libby didn’t talk or walk until months after her sister and we could all see the frustration that they both felt. But our little girl is a fighter. She bravely coped with the horrific effects of the chemotherapy and in the moments when she felt well enough, she watched her little sister and tried to learn to walk and talk from her. Eventually Libby had another scan and we were relieved to see that the tumour had shrunk somewhat. The ravaging treatment was working, even though it was making Libby very ill. She could hardly eat and she lost weight rapidly. It was hard to watch our daughter being pumped full of poison that we knew would harm her. She couldn’t possibly understand that it was to make her better, but somehow she seemed to – she took it with such good grace. She didn’t complain and entertained all the nurses and other children on the ward by racing around in a little toy car and laughing, always laughing.There was more good news. Libby’s sight had come back. The doctors could hardly believe it but it gave us a dose of much needed strength to carry on. And we are still carrying on. Libby is finishing her chemotherapy soon and then we will have to wait and see what the doctor’s next step for her is. We know her condition is incurable. Libby met some very brave children, all of whom deserve to tell their story. She also met some wonderful people and has managed to touch the hearts of men and women all over the world. If our baby daughter can cope with what she has had to go through then you and I can surely cope with whatever life has in store for us. She is our inspiration, we hope she can be yours too.