On the first anniversary of Isaac Wilton’s death, 26-year-old Harriet shares a heartfelt tribute to her brother as she and his family set up Team Isaac Forever to support Brain Tumour Research.
No bond is greater than a sibling bond. The person you grow up with side by side, have shared history with, and who knows you better than anyone.
That’s what my brother Isaac was to me. He was more than a brother; he was honestly my best friend.
Isaac had a zest for life. He loved his family, his girlfriend Caitlin, and his job with the National Grid, where he was completing a degree apprenticeship while training to be an Electrical Engineer. Everything was going according to plan for Isaac to enjoy a wonderful life, full of love and amazing experiences.
Isaac with Caitlin
However, one Saturday morning at the age of just 20, Isaac was at the gym, lifting weights, when he went dizzy and experienced a seizure.
Since he had no other symptoms, paramedics advised that he may have just overdone it at the gym, but they wanted to take him into hospital to be checked, just to be sure.
He was taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary, where a brain scan revealed a tumour growing on his brain. Our lives were turned upside down.
Isaac was booked in for brain surgery to debulk the tumour at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham. He had most of the tumour removed, but we had no idea our worlds were about to shatter even more. When we received the biopsy results for Isaac’s tumour, we were told it was a glioblastoma. Initially, this was just a long word we had never heard before, but then we were told it is one of the most difficult types of brain tumour to treat and that the life expectancy after a glioblastoma diagnosis is between 12 and 18 months.
I can’t quite describe the pain we felt hearing those words from the doctor. It felt unreal, as though we were trapped in a nightmare that was happening to someone else.
But it wasn't. It was happening to our beautiful Isaac, our son, our brother, our boyfriend – someone who meant everything to so many people and was loved beyond measure.
Post-surgery, Isaac had the standard of care treatment for glioblastoma, which consists of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. He was so strong and positive throughout this, but we knew that these treatments were only life-extending, not curative. Eventually, Isaac’s NHS treatment was due to finish, and we were told that once that happened, there would be no other options available to him.
I loved Isaac so much, and we wanted to know we had done everything we possibly could to help him have the best chance at life, so we began fundraising for experimental private treatment options. We had heard about a type of experimental immunotherapy in Germany which isn’t offered here in the UK, but it came at a cost. We began fundraising and thanks to the support of family, friends and our amazing wider community, we raised £190,000.
It was then that Isaac was contacted by The Royal Marsden in Sutton. A doctor there was running a trial that Isaac could be eligible for, given the genome sequencing of his specific tumour. We made the decision to enrol Isaac on it but, because it was a trial, he couldn’t also be on any other treatment at the same time, since the purpose was to monitor the effects of the specific new drug they were testing.
At first, the results of the trial were amazing. On every scan, Isaac’s tumour appeared to be shrinking, and at one point it had shrunk by 40% of its original size. However, very quickly things started to deteriorate. Isaac began having seizures again (which he hadn’t had since the first seizure leading to his diagnosis). He was taken to hospital and put into intensive care to stop them.
When Isaac left intensive care and had more brain scans, it was discovered that the tumour had spread to his spine. His previous scan had been stable, so we couldn’t believe that it had spread so rapidly. But that is how aggressive this awful type of cancer is.
At this point, Isaac had begun to find day-to-day tasks more difficult. He couldn’t eat without his hands trembling and he was gradually losing the use of his legs, requiring the use of a wheelchair to get around. The doctors advised that he was too poorly to travel and that he should be put onto palliative care.
Mum Jo with Isaac
We couldn’t believe it. How could this be happening? He was 22 years old. He should be going to music concerts, going on holidays with Caitlin, going to Leicester City football matches with our dad, watching more series of Strictly Come Dancing – his guilty pleasure – with our mum, and worrying about when his university coursework was due. He should not be being placed on end-of-life care. It was totally and utterly unfair.
Isaac gradually deteriorated over the next couple of weeks and was admitted to our local hospice, LOROS. The care and compassion shown by the team there were extraordinary. They allowed us to focus on what mattered most: being by Isaac’s side as his loving family, rather than worrying about his medical care. They helped us create precious keepsakes, including casts of Isaac’s hand holding ours and fingerprints that we could transform into jewellery. We will always be grateful for the kindness, dignity and support they gave both Isaac and our family during such a heartbreaking time.
After a few days in the hospice, Isaac passed away peacefully on 30th October 2025, with Mum and Dad, Caitlin and me, all by his side.
Since Isaac’s passing, we have tried to maintain his positive outlook on life, even in the toughest moments. Isaac found humour in everything and was such an inspiration to everyone who met him.
Throughout his illness, Isaac supported Brain Tumour Research. He was a huge fan of all the charity does and was passionate about supporting research and the development of new treatment options.
Isaac really wanted to bring forward the day when others diagnosed with a glioblastoma would not feel so hopeless.
At the time, Brain Tumour Research was running a fundraising campaign to launch a new Centre of Excellence at the University of Nottingham, specifically focusing on glioblastoma. Isaac was invited to deliver a speech at a fundraising event to give a patient’s perspective on why the Centre of Excellence was so important. I went along to watch him and felt such pride, listening to him speak so passionately and eloquently about something so painful yet so important to him.
Isaac with Prof Ruman Rahman, director of the Nottingham research centre
Isaac delivered that speech in June 2025, and the Nottingham Centre of Excellence launched in January 2026. Sadly, it came less than three months after Isaac passed away. We are so sad he missed the launch, but I am so proud to know that his speech contributed to such an important initiative.
We know how passionate Isaac was about the work of Brain Tumour Research, and as a family we want to continue this as part of his legacy. As a result, we have set up a Fundraising Group called Team Isaac Forever
We donated the funds raised for Isaac’s experimental treatments to this Fundraising Group, and specifically to the Centre of Excellence at Nottingham to fund a PhD researcher working on glioblastoma, meaning that, so far, we have donated over £190,000 in Isaac’s memory.
We will not stop here, though. We plan to continue supporting Brain Tumour Research in every way we can, hosting events throughout the year to help us remember Isaac.
I miss my brother every single day and will always feel robbed of the future we should have shared. He was my best friend growing up and I have no doubt that bond would only have grown stronger as we navigated adulthood together. I wish we could have watched each other build our lives, celebrated life’s milestones side by side and grown old together. I would have loved to watch him marry the love of his life, become a father and create the happy future he deserved. He would have been such a wonderful dad.
Even as time passes, Isaac is never far from my thoughts. I hope he is proud of the work we will continue to do in his name and that one day no other family will feel our pain.
Harriet and Isaac
If you would like to support Team Isaac Forever’s fundraising, please click here to donate to their JustGiving page.
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