Toddler’s most cancers dismissed for 3 years as ‘abdomen issues’
The mum from Runcorn, Cheshire, says she feels let down by the care her daughter, Ella, acquired up to now couple of years.
“We’ve been told she could have been born with this,” Claire, 38, revealed.
“I’m just feeling so let down with the number of times we’ve been back and forth.”
The distraught mum elaborated: “I just can’t get my head around how it’s not been detected in three years of going to hospital with stomach problems.”
Ella has acquired a number of diagnoses, from lactose and dairy illiberal to having a viral an infection, or just being constipated.
READ MORE: Mum-of-two left in ‘agony’ after not being able to wee properly for nearly five years
In May 2023, Ella’s abdomen points turned extra extreme, so additional medical investigations have been made.
Ella was then referred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, the place an ultrasound revealed a big mass in the back of her abdomen.
Following an MRI scan the next week, Ella has been tragically identified with stage 4 neuroblastoma.
Neuroblastoma
Children With Cancer UK explains: “Neuroblastoma is a cancer that develops in nerve cells.”
Mainly affecting infants and kids below the age of 5, tumours sometimes develop within the stomach, like Ella’s, or within the adrenal glands.
The first signs are lack of urge for food, tiredness, and ache within the bones.
Additional signs would possibly embody:
- Small, blue-coloured lumps
- Weakness within the legs
- Swollen stomach
- Difficulty swallowing and respiration.
Unfortunately, neuroblastoma has “one of the lowest survival rates of all childhood cancers”.
Stage 4 neuroblastoma means “the cancer has spread to parts of the body that are some distance from where it started”.
Young Ella is now in her seventh spherical of chemotherapy and goes to have surger, a stem cell transplant, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy.
“It’s up and down at the moment; it’s good days and bad days,” Claire shared.
“She’s got no energy and no mobility at all for her to run around or play, it’s taken it right out her.”
Claire is now elevating funds for Ella’s care on a Go Fund Me web page.