While enduring four cycles of chemotherapy, 15-year-old Ena Marie Mifsud has founded her own online business, making personalised accessories such as mugs, T-shirts, birthday cards and tote bags.
The teen, from Birzebbuga, has always had a flare for creativity and entrepreneurship, having showed interest in the business side of things at around the age of three, when she prepared a bazaar for her mother, pretending to sell her products after coming home from work.
Ena Marie would also make birthday cards for her grandmother to be able to give to her nieces and nephews, and her grandmother used to pay her, instead of simply buying a card.
Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday from central London, close to the University College London Hospital where she is getting treatment, Ena Marie and her mother Maria spoke about Ena’s story, which involved a years-long ordeal starting in 2020. Ena also attends school in London.
She had developed stomach-related issues and was diagnosed with a rare condition which required her to go for treatment in Rome, from November 2021 until March 2022.
This condition leads to quick and extreme weight loss, which was happening at a time when Ena Marie was developing. Ena had issues keeping food down, as well as compression on her duodenum, which allowed very little food to pass to her stomach.
Ena Marie underwent treatment, which was successful. She started undergoing physiotherapy to regain her strength and mobility, after having been bedridden for months.
“She began recovering, I took her to physiotherapy twice a week, she went back to school, as well as singing lessons. She started walking, even though she was still very underweight, at around 30kg,” Maria, her mother said.
But in September of last year, Ena Marie started losing her balance and experiencing blurred vision. Maria said that doctors had initially recommended more physiotherapy, but in October Ena had lost feeling in half of her body.
She was having frequent episodes of body paralysis and was not making sense in her words. At the beginning of December of last year, Ena was getting worse, but CT scans and other tests were coming back normal.
Maria said that an MRI was done on Ena in December, after recommendations by her sister, who is a doctor.
Ena Marie was diagnosed with a brain tumour on 20 December and was transported via air ambulance to the UK, with a nurse and a doctor by her side.
The cancerous tumour was found in the cerebellum, the part of the brain which controls balance. It also spread to her spine, causing blurred vision and leg pain.
Ena Marie underwent a major six-hour operation during which surgeons removed parts of the tumour that had spread to her spine.
Her mother said that thankfully, she has successfully completed four cycles of chemotherapy, two of which were of high doses.
During her treatment, a teacher from the school in London she attends, came to give her lessons and noticed this particular machine Ena was using, to print her designs on materials. Her teacher was impressed and took the machine to the classroom to teach her classmates.
Ena Marie was given a certificate for her expertise in working with the machine. In her free time at the hospital, she used to use the machine to print personalised designs on cards, mugs and tote bags.
On Monday, Ena Marie will start six weeks of radiotherapy and hopes to come back to Malta after the treatment’s completion.
Asked what she is looking forward to, Ena Marie said her 16th birthday, which will be on 21 September. She said that she misses the sea, and despite being a bit picky, she misses certain Maltese foods.
She is also looking forward to visiting the new headquarters for the girl guides, which she has been attending since she was four years old.
Maria said that they have found a lot of support from relatives, as well as the girl guides, who kept her involved by giving her advertising work and things to do so that she continues to earn badges.
Ena Marie, with a smile on her face throughout the interview, said that she hopes to enjoy her 16th birthday back in Malta.