The Emily Morris Fund
Dedicated to funding world class research in Emily’s name, with over £1,208,971 raised so far.
After experiencing a range of symptoms, including a constant strange smell and taste, Emily Morris was diagnosed with a glioblastoma at the age of 29. She survived for two years, during which time she still worked as much as she could and raised awareness of brain tumours.
Since her passing, her family set up The Emily Morris Fund to raise funds and awareness in Emily’s name. The Fund has now raised over £1m towards a research project on glioblastoma headed by Professor Neil Carragher at the University of Edinburgh.
Emily’s Story
Emily was a very sweet, loving, caring and kind daughter and at only 4ft 10, always looked younger than she was. Emily loved driving and Formula One. In fact she got the whole family into F1. Her brother Bobby once said, if Emily was ever going to be interested in sport, it would have been one where it involved sitting down in a car. She was mad about it!
Emily loved to travel, she loved movies and all types of music from rock to pop and in particular Take That. She studied film studies at college and then at Leeds Met University and after that went to work on several TV shows and seeing her name on the credits was definitely one of her proudest moments. She then got a ‘proper ‘ job working for a leading architectural lighting company where she stayed for seven years before she became too unwell to continue.
When Emily was 29, she began to start experiencing headaches and flu like symptoms, which doctors initially put down to a virus. Then, for no apparent reason, her resting heart rate rocketed. A baffled cardiac specialist prescribed medication to bring it down but could find no underlying cause. When she began to experience a strange smell and taste up to 20 times a day, the next port of call was an ear, nose and throat specialist. Again, his examination uncovered nothing unusual – but he sent Emily for an MRI scan. A few days later, expecting nothing terrible, she went alone to hear the results. A consultant told her she had a brain tumour – a glioblastoma.
In 2015, Emily had surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible, followed by 30 sessions of radiotherapy and eight rounds of chemotherapy. Initially, regular scans had shown that the remainder of the tumour was inactive. Then came the news that it had started to grow again – and, yet again, Emily embarked on a course of chemotherapy.
Emily was able to work part time throughout most of her treatments, she loved her work and always made the effort to give 100%, she was so resilient and brave and hard working, in fact on the very day she was diagnosed she went straight back to her office to work feeling so guilty for any time she’d taken off to visit doctors etc. She fought off any small side effects quite well and, always with a smile on her face. During her weekly hospital visits the other cancer patients would look at her in amazement, she looked so well! She would never let her ‘down’ days get the better of her but obviously when times were bad she would say to us ‘let me have my day … agree with me it’s all rubbish and I’ll be better tomorrow’.
Emily was determined to raise awareness of this disease and worked closely with The Brain Tumour Charity to generously share her story. She was a real inspirational hero to all that met and knew her.
Sadly, Emily passed away on the 3rd January 2017, aged just 31.
The last 10 or so days leading up to Emily’s death were extremely difficult. There was a moment in hospital, I think where we all realised unfortunately, this is nearing to the end now. Which was when she came home. I think the best you can do at that time is at least be together and be as a family and make sure that Emily had all her very closest people around in what was her last days.
Harry Morris, Emily’s brother
Emily’s Legacy
After Emily passed away, we decided to set up The Emily Morris Fund at The Brain Tumour Charity to raise funds and awareness for this horrendous disease. We were blown away by the research being conducted by Professor Carragher at the University of Edinburgh and this is something we knew we absolutely must support through The Emily Morris Fund.
From buying Susan’s bracelets and running marathons, to cycling across San Francisco to Los Angeles and marching in The Brain Tumour Charity’s flagship Twilight Walk event, our friends and family have been incredible and very, very generous. Thanks to their support and a legacy gift from Emily, we are delighted that we have now raised over £1m for Professor Carragher’s research project.
In lockdown I decided I wanted to do something for the charity. Emily was always very colourful and loved jewellery, too. And her flat was always very colourful. I thought 'I know, I'm going to make some Emily style bracelets.'
Susan Morris, Emily’s mother
We will always keep Emily’s memory alive because we talk about her a lot. Whenever we’re at a family dinner or a birthday, we’ll always do a little toast to her and just make sure that she’s remembered. I think that’s the most important thing. We always make sure Emily is there in some sort of way.
Bobby Morris, Emily’s brother
Our family will always be a family of five people, we’re not a family of four.
Funding research through The Brain Tumour Charity, wherever it needs to be in the world, by the best practitioners, by the best institutions is the lifeblood of finding a cure to this awful disease.
Jack Morris, Emily’s father and Chairman of The Brain Tumour Charity
Thank you to Jack, Susan, Harry and Bobby for sharing Emily’s story and all of the supporters of The Emily Morris Fund for their ongoing generosity and support in Emily’s memory.
You can buy one of Susan’s handmade bracelets here.
You can read more about Professor Carragher’s research project here.
If you would like to make a donation in Emily’s memory, please click here and select ‘in memory’ and fill in Emily Morris in the name field.