Ania Hough woke up on Christmas morning to find her son Jamie had a headache, so she suggested a walk to get some fresh air. Then he began struggling to lift his leg.
‘He woke up jumping on the bed, and opened presents,’ Ania recalls.
‘We went downstairs, and he said he had a headache, so I gave him some medicine.
‘I thought the fresh air might help, so we put our boots on and headed out for a Christmas morning walk.’
But eight-year-old Jamie’s headache didn’t go away, and he started to complain about his jaw hurting near his ear, which had never happened before.
‘As we started walking back, he started to drag his leg,’ she adds. ‘I told him to stop being silly and to walk properly, but he told me he was.’
It was in that moment Ania knew something was seriously wrong, and the next day, December 26, 2023, Jamie would undergo a gruelling 12-hour surgery to remove a cancerous brain tumour.
Her son’s headaches had been the first warning sign, and the mum-of-two is now encouraging parents to push for scans if their child has Jamie’s symptoms.
The first time Jamie, now 10, complained of a headache was in October 2023, and it made him sick.
Initially, Ania, 42, thought he’d picked up a school sickness bug, but after calling 111 she took him to A&E at Maidstone Hospital in Kent.
She claims her son wasn’t offered tests or scans, and his symptoms were put down to dehydration from the stomach bug.
‘His headaches got worse and more often, they were daily,’ Ania, from Staplehurst, Kent, explains.
She took Jamie to a GP where she claims she was told he was suffering from migraines. So, over the next two months, Ania gave him Calpol to ease his pain while they waited for a hospital referral letter from a neurologist, which she claims never arrived.
When Christmas day came, and Jamie couldn’t walk properly, she took matters into her own hands.
‘As we walked to the car, he threw up and then dozed off on the way to A&E,’ she says. When they arrived at the hospital, Jamie finally got his CT scan, which revealed abnormal brain activity.
He was quickly transferred to King’s College Hospital in London to undergo brain surgery on Boxing Day.
Biopsy results showed he had a 6cm by 5cm cancerous brain tumour called choroid plexus carcinoma – a high-grade, fast-growing brain tumour that mostly grows in one-year-olds. The first symptom of this cancer is pressure headaches that usually occur in the morning.
‘It was a bit of a Christmas miracle they did the CT scan,’ Ania says. ‘When we ended up being transferred to another hospital, the neurosurgeon said it was a matter of hours [to be able to save him].
‘If Jamie hadn’t gotten there when he did, they wouldn’t have been able to help him, as the tumour was creating massive pressure in his brain.
‘It was swelling, and there was a cyst growing out of it – it would have caused too much damage.’
Ania admits it’s the ‘scariest Christmas they’ve ever had’, but she’s ‘grateful’ she took her family out on that walk that morning.
It meant doctors caught his cancer just in time, and Jamie underwent a second 12-hour operation on his brain to have the rest of the tumour removed on January 12, 2024.
He also had two other surgeries to have a drain and then a shunt fitted to help drain excess fluid from his brain, before being discharged from the hospital.
He then underwent 30 sessions of proton beam therapy and six rounds of chemotherapy, finishing the last treatment on September 29, 2024, before getting the official all-clear in November.
The family have celebrated two Christmases since, and Ania has been able to watch her son continue to write letters to Santa.
Now she wants other parents to advocate for their children if they are experiencing daily headaches and get them checked out.
‘As a parent, if your child is suffering from headaches, push for a CT or some kind of scan,’ Ania says. ‘I’m grateful Jamie is good, and I’m grateful for the junior doctor [who helped him], but I’m aware the outcome could have been very different.
‘I think the hospital messed up with Jamie and should have done more on our first visit. It wouldn’t have saved him from the diagnosis of cancer but the tumour was growing, and they could have caught it earlier.
‘If they had, maybe he would have only had one surgery instead of four and wouldn’t have ended up with a shunt.’
A Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust spokesperson says: ‘We are very pleased to hear Jamie is doing well following treatment. While we can’t discuss individual cases, patient safety and high-quality care are always our top priorities.
‘Our clinicians look carefully at a patient’s symptoms and decide whether tests are needed, and which ones will provide the clearest answers. CT scans aren’t always undertaken straight away because we have to balance the benefits with the risks of radiation.
‘If anyone has worries about their care, we encourage them to get in touch so our teams can review their treatment and offer support.’
Ania praises the Lennox Children’s Cancer Fund for the continuous support they have shown her family through Jamie’s cancer journey and after treatment, but ultimately, her choices as a mother on Christmas Day saved his life.
‘It was hard to go on the walk that day with him,’ she says. ‘But it was meant to be the way it was, and I’m grateful we decided to do it.’
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