Florence could no longer sleep alone. The pain was so severe that her mother, Anna Chattaway, had to hold her upright during the night so she could rest.
The girl was one year old, and her belly was getting more and more swollen. According to Anna, at her family doctor’s office they were told it was constipation and were prescribed laxatives. For three weeks, she had to give them to her, even though the little girl was crying in pain and nothing was changing. According to her mother, at least six times they reassured her with the same explanation, and at one point a doctor even told her: “We don’t think it’s cancer”.
Anna, a clinical psychologist from Stourbridge, England, refused to accept this. She demanded a blood test, and the results were abnormal. They were referred to the hospital immediately, where another doctor felt her belly and realized that they were not feces, but lumps. It was neuroblastoma: a 30 cm tumor weighing 2 kilos in a girl who was just 13.
She had surgery the day after they found out, and began chemotherapy, surgery to remove almost all of the tumor, and five cycles of immunotherapy. In April, her parents received the news they had been hoping for: the tumor had stopped growing. Today, Florence is two years old and, according to her mother, a very happy little girl.