Patient Experiences
Be Child Cancer Aware’s mission is to continue to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer in children and teenagers. Some of our parents and young people have kindly told us the signs they/their children had before diagnosis to help us to raise more awareness. Thank you to everyone who submitted their comments for this page:-
Stephanie Kennedy
The first signs I had was being breathless and sweating loads then I found the lump on my neck, was diagnosed at 13 with hodgkins stage 3b took 6 months to get diagnosed. I’m now 22 and have a little girl at almost 2, xx
Claire Dove
My daughter was diagnosed with ALL in 2009. Main symptoms were swelling to the abdomen and loss of appetite due to enlarged liver and spleen, tiredness, severe pains in the hip/thigh that woke her in the night accompanied with a high temp.
Jodie Rowlandson
My son (who was 2 at the time) started limping, was diagnosed as growing pains, the irritable hip syndrome and finally after a bone marrow aspirate confirmed to be Leukemia (ALL). He is now 4 and in Maintenance treatment. xx
Karen Ellam
My son was diagnosed aged 8 with medullablastoma(brain and spine) the main symptoms were headaches vommiting but once he had vommited the pressure in his brain had released so he felt okay again for a while …double vision…it took us 4 months to get diagnosed. From being diagnosed to passing away it was 18mths 
xxxx
Nicola Ensor
Chloe was 6 when she was diagnosed with philidelphia positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia she used 2 sweat a lot at nite + was always tired, and started 2 get a lot of funny lookin bruises, x x
Margaret Sheridan
Liam, my gorgeous nephew, Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, sore throat, ear infection, severe rash, swollen eyes, sore joints, tiredness and breathlessness, loss of appetite and general condition……………left this world aged 6 2009. The bravest little boy ever.XXXXXXX
Heather Dowdeswell
Grade III Ependymoma (Brain Tumour). Diagnosed in 2009, 10 days after my son’s 5th birthday. Symptoms were extreme/constant tiredness, change in personality (clingy, grumpy), weight loss, random vomiting for no apparent reason but completely fine afterwards. My son also developed a squint smile and would have episodes of shaking. He had months of high temperatures also for no apparent reason. Strangely, only ever complained of one headache! We spent 3 months going back and forth to our GP and were given many reasons for these symptoms. When it was finally diagnosed the tumour was 9.5cm.
Fiona Harris
At 4 weeks old my son had strange purple leasions,tierd,crying,being sick,clingy,high temperatures and struggled to put weight on he was eventually diagnosed 7 months later with AML by a simple blood test at worcester royal !! 7 different doctors from our local surgery and primary care unit failed to pick up on his swollen spline and did’nt think that his purple leasions were anything to worry about
