The mother of a five-year-old boy suffering from aggressive brain cancer has told how she mistook the early symptoms of the disease for an episode of severe heatstroke.
Holly Brown, 31, a housewife from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, initially thought her daughter Olivia had spent too much time in the sun when she started vomiting one morning in May.
But the illness did not stop for the rest of that week. What’s more, it came accompanied by paralyzing fatigue.
Finally, in mid-June, Mrs. Brown took her little girl He took her to A&E for further investigation.
At this point, she appeared’wobbly on his feet’, and one of his eyes seemed a little ‘off-balance’.
Concerned, doctors embarked on a series of investigations, including detailed scans.
Devastatingly, the results showed he had a brain tumor, although doctors were still not sure what type or how advanced the disease was.
Olivia was rushed into emergency surgery to have an external ventricular drainage system placed to relieve a blockage that was preventing cerebrospinal fluid from draining.
Olivia Brown suffered a bout of violent vomiting on a hot day this spring, which turned out to be the first sign of a deadly brain cancer.
Medulloblastomas are a type of brain tumor that typically affects young children and affects movement and balance.
And within days, he underwent an eight-hour operation to remove 95 percent of the tumor.
The remaining five percent were too close to the brain to be safely removed.
A week later, doctors informed the family that Olivia had grade three medulloblastoma, a type of tumor that develops in the cerebellum at the back of the brain, which is the area responsible for balance and movement.
These types of brain tumors are typically diagnosed within the first five years of life, according to Brain Tumor Research. Doctors also discovered that the cancer had spread to his spine.
Mrs Brown said: “I burst into tears, I was just devastated.”
She struggled to explain the situation to her three other children, who were used to having her around for support all the time.
She said: “I think my eldest daughter is probably taking it the hardest, because she understands a lot more than the others, so she can be quite withdrawn, but I’ve been doing my best to reassure her and let her know that she can do it.” “. talk to me.’
Olivia’s treatment planned a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and offered a 50 per cent survival rate, but carried the risk of future learning difficulties.
Olivia gets ‘a little upset’ and ‘a little scared’ but has taken it all ‘pretty well’ according to her mother.
“Doctors said chemotherapy and radiotherapy could lower his IQ and he would probably end up with learning difficulties,” Mrs Brown said.
Throughout this period, Mrs. Brown found it difficult to know what to tell Olivia about her condition.
‘Olivia gets quite angry sometimes, which is understandable considering everything she’s been through.
“He gets a little scared when he has to do things, but overall he’s taken it pretty well.
‘I tell her everything I can, age-appropriately, so she understands.
“I don’t go into too much detail, but I told her she has cancer and she needs some treatments to get her better, and it’s going to take a long time, that’s all I can do, really.”
In August, Olivia underwent two five-day rounds of chemotherapy, during which she lost her hair.
“She took it pretty well actually, the hospital gave us a children’s book that explains chemotherapy, I think that helped her calm down.”
Olivia’s mother Holly plans to turn the family home into a Christmas grotto for her daughter.
Cancer treatment has shrunk Olivia’s tumour, but radiotherapy is likely to have left her with learning difficulties.
“She was a little upset about what happened, but when it happened, I think probably because she’s young, she doesn’t really care too much.
‘I picked up her hair, I put it away. “I think maybe that helped and I told him it will grow back.”
Between the two rounds, doctors told the family that the brain tumor had shrunk, but that its exact size and the status of the cancer in the spine remained unclear due to fluid buildup.
In September, Olivia received six weeks of proton beam therapy, a type of radiation therapy that uses high-energy protons to treat cancer, as part of a clinical trial.
After radiation therapy, Olivia suffered pain and peeling skin, and had extreme nausea and discomfort; as a result, she had to be tube-fed for several weeks.
Olivia’s medical team scheduled another scan for December 4 to reevaluate the tumor, and she will begin six to nine months of additional chemotherapy on December 9.
Until then, the family isn’t sure what awaits them.
“The hardest part is not knowing, it seems like everything is up in the air,” Ms. Brown said.
Determined to make the most of Christmas, Mrs. Brown and her mother, Amanda, set up a GoFundMe to transform the family home into a Santa’s Grotto for December.
“We don’t really know how well she’ll be because she’s going to have chemotherapy in December, so it’s not a good idea to try to take her anywhere.”
‘We just wanted to do the best we could at home: just fill the house with decorations, make it sort of like a Santa’s grotto. We want some lovely Christmas memories.’
Looking back on the past year, he believes his experience has made him appreciate his family even more.
‘I think about things that bothered me before; now it doesn’t matter anymore.
“None of that matters, the most important thing is your family and your health and appreciating what you have.”