A MUM has given other parents a stark warning after bruises on her three-year-old son’s legs turned out to be cancer.
Kimberley McFarquhar, 31, said she put her son Harry’s small bruises down to him being an energetic toddler, but then the tot began experiencing breathing difficulties.
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Worried about his breathing, she tested son Harry for Covid, and when she discovered he was negative she and husband James believed he had a chest infection.
After several trips to the hospital and the GP, doctors diagnosed Harry with acute lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). They started him on intensive treatment 12 hours later.
The mother-of-one, Kimberley, is sharing her family’s experiences four months into Harry’s difficult chemotherapy treatment. She urges parents to seek medical attention for any unusual symptoms.
Kimberley, an East Midlands native, said that when I heard the words “leukaemia”, I thought “he was going to die.”
“Around Harry’s diagnosis Ashley Cain had just lost her daughter Azaylia to leukaemia. This was still fresh in my mind.
I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind, it was terrible.
“It was a massive blow, you just don’t think it will be something that will ever happen to you.”
The evil disease struck the family for the second time after James (37), had non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL).
After Kimberley, an office worker, was told that they would not be able to conceive after James had received chemotherapy, Harry was called a miracle baby.
James is in remission after a blood-based tumor was removed. However, many consultants have assured James that Harry’s diagnosis is not related to the previous one and that it was simply an unfortunate coincidence.
Kimberley said: “We were told we wouldn’t be able to have him because of my husband’s chemotherapy treatment, Harry’s our little miracle.”
When he’s not undergoing intensive bouts of chemotherapy at Northampton General Hospital and Nottingham Children’s Hospital, Harry takes oral chemotherapy medication at home that is so toxic Kimberley and James must wear rubber gloves when administering it.
“It’s heartbreaking. I often sit there and wish I could swap places with him. There have been many times I’ve sat there thinking ‘let it be me’,” According to the mother-of-1,
Kimberley offered a warning to parents: “A parent knows their children best. If anyone has any concerns, or feels that something’s not right, I would recommend going to get it checked.
Keep pushing if you aren’t happy with the information being given to you.
“We never imagined we’d be affected like this, but we have. We can easily pass the symptoms off as something else.
“When you put it all together I would say you know your child best and get these things checked out.”
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