With the treatment of a three-year-old boy, the doctors delayed for more than two months: the doctors believed that his mother was unnecessarily dramatizing the situation.
They say a mother’s heart does not lie. Katherine Kelly, a mother of five, knows for sure that this statement is one hundred percent true. After all, if not for her instinct and her perseverance, she would have lost one of her sons.
The kid with the glasses is Edward. Here he is still completely healthy
Catherine noticed that something was wrong with her three-year-old Edward: the boy seemed to lose coordination of movement, began to bang on the door frames, crash into furniture. It would seem that there is nothing strange, because he is still small, it would be naive to expect a confident gait from a baby. But Catherine was not going to ignore even the slightest oddities. Moreover, Eddie began to have problems with balance. And then the woman noticed that Eddie’s younger sister, Edith, was ahead of her brother in development. All this happened very quickly, in a couple of summer months.
Katherine was sure that something was wrong with her baby. She even suspected that a brain tumor could affect the child’s condition in a similar way. The woman rushed to the pediatrician, expressing all her doubts and worries to him. But the pediatrician said that she was too worried: Eddie had no neurological symptoms that would confirm Catherine’s suspicions. Catherine insisted on an MRI, but the doctor refused: there is no reason.
Mom still had reasons to worry. The doctor just didn’t see them.
Then Katherine went into debt to sign up for a paid scan. He was appointed for mid-November, it was necessary to wait for more than two months. Shortly before the procedure, Eddie made a planned visit to the ophthalmologist, and he noticed swelling of the optic nerve. And this was already the basis for an MRI – the baby got a chance to be examined early. The scan confirmed that a massive tumor was growing in the boy’s brain. He was immediately taken by ambulance to the hospital.
“I was terrified,” recalls Katherine in a conversation with … – For a second I broke down, sobbed right in the parking lot. But then I pulled myself together – Edward needed me, the rest of my children, my husband. I had no right to unstuck. “
The surgeons reassured the parents: the tumor was resectable, and the chances of success are high. True, if the boy had gotten to the MRI back then, in the summer, then everything would have been much simpler: the cancer in Eddie’s brain was very aggressive, it devoured his cells and grew every day.
The operation was scheduled for the next day. It lasted 12 hours. The doctors managed to remove almost all of the cancer cells. But the boy’s immunity, weakened by the tumor, could not stand it: fluid began to accumulate in the brain, it was necessary to put a shunt, and after this manipulation, sepsis began. In addition, Eddie has lost his sight. Fortunately, not forever, he went blind for 36 hours due to a traumatic operation. The baby underwent three operations in four days. But that was not all. Eddie also needed chemotherapy.
Edward rings the hospital bell – a sign that he is healthy and can go home
Over the next seven months, the boy underwent six rounds of debilitating treatment. He received blood transfusions 33 times. After all this, Eddie had to re-learn to walk and speak. And only a year after the first visit to the doctor, the baby returned home – he was healthy. He will spend the next five years under the supervision of doctors: cancer can return at any time.
“Edward did not have the classic tumor symptoms. But I trust my intuition. People have to trust their instincts, because it can save their lives or the lives of other family members, ”said Catherine.