Hannah York is speaking out after her teenage daughter died just two days after her 19th birthday following months of misdiagnosed cancer symptoms.
Liberty York, of Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, first fell ill in May 2024 with fatigue, nausea and unexplained breast symptoms. Her doctor suspected hormonal issues and ordered further investigation, forcing the family to wait for an appointment, her mother said. She was later diagnosed with Addison’s disease, but when her left breast began to swell, doctors told her it was mastitis and prescribed antibiotics.
Five separate doctor visits followed before breast care specialists became involved, yet they still insisted the swelling was an abscess. “They said it was highly unlikely to be cancer,” Hannah wrote. It took until August 21, 2024 — three months after symptoms began — for a biopsy to finally reveal the truth: Liberty had angiosarcoma, an aggressive soft-tissue cancer, along with a 10-pound tumour in her chest.
By then, the cancer had already spread to her lymph nodes. With no beds available at a specialist cancer hospital, Liberty was sent home in agony, unable to walk more than 10 metres, her breast swollen to ten times its normal size. “She was in unbearable pain. We hadn’t been given any medication. As a mother I felt so helpless,” Hannah shared.
After an emergency room visit, Liberty finally secured a bed and underwent extensive surgery on September 10. Surgeons removed the tumour, her breast, surrounding tissue down to the ribcage, and all lymph nodes in her left armpit. Complications followed swiftly — pneumonia, blood clots, and by November, word that the cancer had become incurable after reaching her left lung.
Liberty began palliative chemotherapy, but a new lump appeared near her surgical scar in May 2025. The cancer had spread again. She made the decision to stop all treatment and return home for end-of-life care.
“She slept for most of her birthday on 30th May. But she had requested a beautiful Bridgerton themed celebration,” Hannah said. “The only time she asked me ‘why’, was when she knew she was leaving hospital to come home to die. This was something I couldn’t answer, because it didn’t make sense. Liberty passed away in the early hours of 1st June, peacefully in her sleep at home.”
Hannah, 41, has now thrown her support behind a new campaign to prevent young cancer patients from slipping through diagnostic cracks. Health experts unveiled fresh guidance amid concerns that children with soft tissue sarcoma face waits stretching weeks, months or even years because symptoms are routinely mistaken for more common conditions.
“I’m not a medical expert but it just baffles me how they can have something so huge and don’t rule out the most serious thing,” Hannah fired back. “I think the thing for me is that I always feel some guilt for trusting, for not pushing more. When your child takes a long time to be diagnosed, I think there will always be a part of you that wonders, ‘Why didn’t I keep pushing?'”
Throughout the ordeal, Hannah said, hope proved scarce. “Throughout Liberty’s cancer journey, there often didn’t feel like much hope — her cancer was rare, underfunded and under-researched,” she wrote. The aggressive nature of Liberty’s particular sarcoma meant it spread to her lungs within just six weeks of surgery.
“Liberty’s type of sarcoma was a particularly aggressive sarcoma and, after she was operated on, it had spread to her lungs in just six weeks,” Hannah added. “The difference between days and weeks to diagnosis is so important with sarcoma — she didn’t get a fighting chance. I want my awareness work to ensure that some good comes from Liberty’s death and to help other families.”
Hannah continues her advocacy work through the new awareness campaign.