An unexpected seizure during Christmas 2018 was the first indication that Evanne Miller-Bettridge had a brain tumour. A scan revealed 24 year old Evanne, from Tamworth in Staffordshire, had a mass on her brain which needed to be removed. A biopsy confirmed Evanne had a grade three astrocytoma. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy initially kept the tumour stable but it eventually grew back. In March 2025, Evanne married Adam just six weeks before she died. Evanne’s family is supporting Brain Tumour Research’s call for a national annual spend of at least £45 million a year on research in order to improve survival rates and patient outcomes in line with other cancers such as breast cancer and leukaemia.
Here is Evanne’s story, as told by her dad Greg Hughes and husband Adam Miller-Bettridge…
Greg said: Evanne was such a talented, vibrant and outgoing young woman who was great at bringing people together.
We've got a video of her when she was six at a pottery museum in Stoke, and they asked her to try and make a pot. She had never done it, but she made a near perfect pot. She picked things up so quickly which always amazed anyone she met.
Evanne went to Lancaster University in 2018, and she was enjoying it. She came home for Christmas but a few days later she got up in the middle of the night and told my wife Vanessa that she didn’t feel well; she collapsed and started having a seizure.
We called an ambulance which took Evanne to hospital in Sutton Coldfield. A CT scan revealed a mass on her brain. The doctors weren't sure if the tumour was low or high grade but said Evanne would need to undergo surgery.
Obviously, we all hoped it was something else instead of a brain tumour. You always think that things like this happen to someone else.
We were terrified of the thought of Evanne going through several hours of surgery on her brain.
You are presented with all these awful facts, such as the risk of dying in the operating theatre and the chance of being paralysed, but Evanne always tried to be resilient and upbeat.
A few weeks later, Evanne was transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham which has a specialist neuro-oncology team. She underwent surgery where the team managed to remove about 90 per cent of the tumour.
After about seven hours, we were told it had gone well. The relief left us in floods of tears.
We were told we could speak to Evanne by phone which absolutely blew us away, considering she had just had major surgery.
But then the results of the biopsy came back. It confirmed Evanne had a grade three astrocytoma. She was told she would need to have chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
That becomes a different ball game then, doesn't it?
Evanne had seven weeks of combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
After several weeks, she started to lose her hair which was difficult for her. She was offered a wig, but she didn't really like the idea of that. Evanne sought out a professional hairdresser in Birmingham, and they cut her hair into a bob which gave her a lot of confidence again.
She just wanted to get on with her life and, for a while, she did.
Evanne faced ongoing issues, including focal seizures and peripheral vision loss. After initial success of the treatment, the tumour recurred.
Despite the challenges, she excelled to achieve a first in her Fine Arts Bachelor of Arts degree at Lancaster University, then went on to get a Master of Arts at Birmingham City University.
Vanessa and I are incredibly proud of her.
Evanne tried a few different combinations of chemotherapy but sadly, none of them were effective.
We couldn't fault Evanne’s oncology team who were incredible but the shocking lack of treatment options in this country is disappointing. There are so few options; after a certain point there's just nothing else available and to watch someone you love be faced with that is crushing.
As a family, we find it hard knowing there is such a lack of research into brain tumours because of low Government funding.
As a country it's just not good enough. It needs to be better.
That’s why we are supporting Brain Tumour Research’s call for a national annual spend of at least £45 million a year on research in order to improve survival rates and patient outcomes in line with other cancers such as breast cancer and leukaemia.
Vanessa, myself and Evanne’s husband Adam joined other families affected by brain tumours at the flagship Walk of Hope at Chatsworth to raise money to fund vital research in her honour. We raised more than £2,750 which we are really pleased with.
If Evanne was still here, she'd have wanted to do it too so we're glad that we could do it for her.
Evanne met her husband, Adam, at Lancaster University in October 2019. Adam continues her story…
Evanne was really outgoing and had a keen sense of making the most of the time she had.
I met her after her initial diagnosis, but she didn't want it to define her. I didn't even know about her diagnosis until I'd known her for a few months.
She was very defiant against the odds, and she never gave up on hope.
Evanne did Fine Arts at university, and she was constantly drawing. Every time she had a spare half an hour, she'd be drawing.
At uni I did Film Studies. There was a mutual module that all the art students had to take, and Evanne and I were in the same class.
She immediately caught my attention, not just because I was from the North West and had never heard a Brummie accent before, but as soon as the class had finished, she immediately was trying to get us all to make a group chat to try and get everyone connected and bring people together.
She was always looking to bring people together; she was just a very social and good person to be around.
We became a couple in May 2020, just after the pandemic. We'd said we liked each other literally the week before the pandemic started. We ended up doing lots of FaceTime calls and then we started posting letters to each other.
I didn't realise Evanne was still going through treatment when I met her. I didn't quite grasp the severity or what was going on behind the scenes because, from a distance, she made it look easy.
One day she just said that she'd had a brain tumour. It wasn't until later, after becoming a couple, that she'd talk about her experiences more. She lost about 20% of her peripheral vision so she found it really difficult to navigate around towns and cities.
We graduated in summer 2022 but by November a scan showed there was something on her brain. I immediately went down to see her, because at this point she was back living in Tamworth, and I was up in Warrington.
The scan showed that the chemotherapy wasn't working, so they replaced it with a different type.
I ended up working remotely for a good chunk of time at Greg and Vanessa’s house in Tamworth because Evanne was having more chemotherapy at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
Evanne was fatigued an awful lot, but she persevered.
It was one thing to read the reports and another thing to actually be around Evanne. She defied belief.
She didn’t think “why me?” but “why not me?” She said it could happen to anyone and that it was just something she had to contend with.
She had an extraordinary outlook, and that rubbed off on those around her.
In October 2024, Evanne and I moved in together. Evanne started to lose mobility around the same time. By early 2025 her condition was worsening, causing her to lose her balance and generally struggle a lot more.
In March 2025, Evanne and I got married.
It was so special, but it was difficult because Evanne had lost her mobility at this point and was largely wheelchair bound. A week before, she said that she wasn’t going to be wheeled down the aisle, so when she entered the church, she stood up and linked arms with Greg and Vanessa on either side, and she walked down the aisle. Evanne was phenomenal. She died six weeks later.
What Evanne went through was devastating.
Brain tumours are the biggest killer of under 40s, so why wouldn't the Government invest more money into researching this disease?
Brain tumours are difficult to research, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be awarded the same funding as any other cancer that devastates families just as equally.
Doing the Walk of Hope with Greg and Vanessa at Chatsworth was really special and emotional.
We wanted to raise as much money as possible to help fund researchers who are striving to find a cure.
It’s a hugely important event which brings people who have been impacted by brain tumours together. You've got to have people around you that understand what you've been through, what you're going through, and where you're going.
You can never lose sight of hope. We've lost Evanne but she would never want us to lose hope for other people.
I just want to make her proud.
Greg Hughes and Adam Miller-Bettridge
September 2026
One in three people in the UK knows someone affected by a brain tumour. This disease is indiscriminate; it can affect anyone at any age. What’s more, brain tumours continue to kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet, to date, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease since records began in 2002.
Brain Tumour Research is determined to change this.
If you have been touched by Evanne’s story, you may like to make a donation via www.braintumourresearch.org/donate or leave a gift in your will via www.braintumourresearch.org/legacy
Together we will find a cure.
