The brother and sister of a 17-year-old girl who died after getting back from her first holiday without her parents have spoken about her heartbreaking final texts. Leah Rogers had just returned to Briton Ferry, between Port Talbot and Swansea , when she was taken ill. At first it was thought Leah had come down with a bad case of tonsillitis after getting home from Majorca. But she went rapidly downhill. Doctors discovered she had a rare immune called disorder HLH, or haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. They gave her just hours to live. Leah's sister Becky, 33, had been due to join her in Majorca, but suffered a miscarriage the week before they were supposed to go. Leah then went with a group of
Friends that the sister both knew. Speaking to the Mirror , Becky said: "I've still got messages on my phone where she's at the airport texting me 'I'm sad you're not here, wish you were here'. She sent me a message saying 'there'll be plenty of other times', which just breaks me to read now. I'm so glad she still went and had a ball. Really that was just a few days after she returned that she became unwell with the tonsillitis." Leah's brother Ben, 25, said he'd only been able to look at the texts from last summer in the last few weeks and said her final messages highlighted how rapidly her condition got worse. He said: "It's been recently, the last three weeks or so, that I've been able to look at Leah's texts. I was talking to her in the hospital. I was asking her what was going on, what they were saying, what she was doing. Although she wasn't up to a lot. How she was keeping herself busy. And from her to be replying normally to what happened in the end was... I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." Leah was put in intensive care at Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend , before being transferred to
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. A family friend raced Becky and Ben up from Wales to join their parents Hugh, and Kath, both 57, in the hours before Leah passed away in June last year. So rare is HLH that three doctors treating Leah at Bridgend had never come across it. The teen's siblings were aware she was seriously ill, with her blood results - which led to her transfer to Birmingham - showing she was far more unwell than first thought, but had no idea how close she was to the end. The last photo of Becky and Leah, taken days before she went into hospital (Image: Becky Rogers) Ben said: "It was one day. It was that one day I thought it was serious and she died that night. That's the bit that's affected me. The PTSD. I go from running around with my daughter at Playzone to getting that call from my mum. "I couldn't even speak, I couldn't get the words out. I couldn't believe it. How I got home, I can't remember the drive. We were helpless. There's not a medical professional in the world who would have brought Leah back. "For it to go from nothing to that, to the point where mum was hoping she had leukaemia. Who hopes their child has leukaemia? What does that mean? For it to get to that from nothing, it doesn't feel real. It hasn't sunk in and I don't think it ever will." Leah Rogers was struck down with what was believed to be a bad case of tonsillitis days after getting home (Image: Becky Rogers) The family held a fundraiser last year, which brought in around £20,000 for charity Histio
UK, which is dedicated to researching HLH. This year, again to coincide with Leah's birthday, which was on Wednesday, they are holding a fundraiser over the weekend. Becky said: "We want to raise awareness of this condition. It's such a thin line between scaring people and making them aware this condition exists. We certainly wouldn't want anyone whose child comes down with a bout of tonsillitis to be panicking that they are going to get HLH and die. Also is that awareness that if they are not getting better and things are deteriorating, I guess push and insist on blood tests." She added: "There is the question of could it have been picked up earlier? But there's no way because her symptoms were so similar to glandular fever. It all just escalated really quickly when her blood went Pete Tong." This year's fundraiser is on Saturday, September 9, from 6.30pm at JK's in Briton Ferry. Tickets are £10 each and the evening will include live artists, raffles, games and a DJ. Tickets are available at JK's and any donations or payments to the charity can be made via PayPal to leahrhistiouk@outlook.com.