Whalsay lass to make catwalk debut for brain tumour charities

Eight-year-old Willa Shearer who was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour last year. 

A Whalsay lass recovering from a rare brain tumour is to make her debut on the catwalk in London – raising money for charity at the same time.

The fashion show is to be held in London Saturday afternoon as part of Ravi’s Dream Prize Draw which has so far raised £90,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity and Brainstrust.

Some of the items in the prize draw are being modelled by 20 children who have been affected by brain tumours, including eight-year-old Willa Shearer from Whalsay.

Willa had been suffering from headaches and changes in mood before getting diagnosed with craniopharyngioma in April last year.

After the diagnosis was confirmed, Willa underwent surgery to have the tumour removed.

Willa’s mother Alison Shearer told The Shetland Times: “She was in a coma in the intensive care unit and had seizures, she couldn’t speak for a while or move her right side.”

Alison said when speech therapists first came to visit Willa, to their surprise the focus was not yet on getting her to talk.

“When the speech therapists came in you thought it would be to get her speaking, but initially it was all about whether or not it’s safe to swallow and her being able to eat.”

Though Willa didn’t yet have her speech back, she maintained her sense of humour as Mrs Shearer said the first noise she made was laughter.

“The first sound that came out of Willa was a giggle, which was the best noise you could ever hear,” she said.

After only making what sounded like “animal noises”, eventually Willa spoke to her father Anthony in the middle of the night.

“We took turns sleeping in aside Willa every night.

“Anthony phoned me and told me he’d woken with her asking ‘can you hear me?’ she had gone from just making sounds to saying a whole sentence, it was amazing.”

Willa will now make her catwalk entrance this Saturday with the fashion show being streamed live on Ravi’s Dream’s Facebook, Instagram and YouTube pages from 5pm.

Items can already be purchased for Ravi’s Dream Prize Draw here