Mum raises awareness for childhood cancer with heartbreaking school photo

LONDON -- A British mum who lost her little girl to cancer has shared an emotional post on Facebook to help raise awareness of the disease.

Julie Apicella of Norfolk in December lost her daughter Emily after her long battle with Wilms' tumour, a cancer of the kidney.

Emily underwent surgery, received chemotherapy and took part in a drugs trial, according to the Huffington Post UK, but she kept relapsing.

"In July to August 2015 we came off the trial as it wasn't working and came home to make memories of our time left," Apicella said. "There were no treatments left to try."

Now, Apicella is attempting to raise awareness of childhood cancer by encouraging as many people as possible to add a gold ribbon to their profile picture.

Apicella's Facebook post had over 9000 shares at the time of writing.

Here's Apicella's post in full.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The post contains links to the The Go Gold Project, which encourages people to update their social media profiles for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and Glow Gold September, which involves buildings across the world being illuminated gold to further raise awareness.

"My daughter ran out of options and we as a family had to watch as her cancer took over her body with nothing to try and cure her and that is tragic," Apicella told the Huffington Post UK.

"I would like the gold ribbon of childhood cancer to be as recognised as the pink ribbon for breast cancer, and for the symptoms [of] cancer to be as recognised as the meningitis rash glass test by parents and doctors."

A list of the symptoms of Wilms' tumour can be found on Macmillan's website. More information about different types of childhood cancer can be found here.