When Pixiebelle Sykes was born, her hair was so long people nicknamed her Rapunzel. It continued to grow at rapid speed and, by the time she was five, it fell much longer than her friends' hair.
In June 2018, when Katie was five, her mum noticed Pixiebelle was losing sight in her right eye and sought medical help. The family was left devastated when Pixiebelle was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
As she underwent treatment, the little girl's stunning hair repeatedly fell out and eventually turned white. But when her aunty's wedding came along, her mum made sure she felt just like a fairytale princess.
Pixiebelle has since undergone four brain operations, 25 MRI scans and lost her hair three times during her four years of chemotherapy treatment. And while the cancerous growth shrunk during the course of these treatments, sadly it started to increase in size again each time they ceased.
Pixiebelle is now taking part in a special trial to see if new medication might offer a solution to her devastating illness. Her mum Katie, who works as a teacher in Ashton, Greater Manchester, said her daughter never had her hair cut before being diagnosed with her illness.
"It had natural highlights and it was just beautiful, and then as she progressed through chemotherapy it grew back," she said.
“But then it fell out again, and the second time it fell out, it was a different story as she was getting older and she was more aware of what people were thinking. She’d never actually had it cut since birth, and people used to call her ‘Rapunzel’ because it was so long – longer than an average five-year-old’s hair."
A few days before the wedding, Katie, 35, took Pixiebelle to a salon in Oldham, Greater Manchester. But she doubted that Pixiebelle’s hair, which was just a few inches long, could actually be styled.
Within minutes, Katie was reduced to floods of tears as her daughter's hairdo - made from layered extensions - unfolded before her eyes. “My sister, who was the bride, was just sitting there watching with me, and Pixiebelle was getting all these bobbles out and putting her hair in little ponytails," she said.
“I was thinking, ‘What is she doing?’ and then the next thing, she went round the back and came out with all these hair extensions. And then we thought, Oh my goodness!
"And then the hair was getting bigger and bigger – and more beautiful by the second. Everyone was crying in the salon, including me and my sister. I really didn’t expect what she had come out with.”
And when she showed up at the ceremony a few days later, Pixiebelle said her friends and family were as shocked as she was. “I didn’t know what was going to happen until the end, but when I saw it, I was so impressed with it," said the nine-year-old.
“I was really nervous going to the wedding, but then when people saw me, their jaws dropped.”
Stylist Terri Leanne Daly, 31, who owns the Do or Dye hair salon, said Pixiebelle had asked her to make it look pretty, with just a plait across the front. “But we do extensions in the salon, and we specialise in them," said Terri.
"And I found a load of pieces and gripped them all in her hair. I put loads of little bobbles all over her hair, and barreled them, so it looked like a wedding hairstyle.
"And literally, everyone was crying in the salon. It was so sweet.”
Terri said that Pixiebelle, who was seated too low in her chair to catch a glimpse of herself during the haircut, seemed "stunned" when she gazed upon her hairdo. “When she finally looked at herself, her face just lit up," she said.
"She was just stunned," she said. "She didn’t really say very much, but her mum and aunt were crying, and I said, “Stop it now, because we’re all crying!'
“But obviously she felt pretty and beautiful, and it was just dead nice and rewarding.”
