My boy beat testicle cancer at 13 months
THIS brave little boy is one of the youngest to get testicular cancer - and he only survived because his mum REFUSED to listen to doctors who said there was nothing wrong.
Tracy Goodbrand kept fighting for 13-month-old Ethan to see a specialist despite being repeatedly told a lump she found was just harmless fluid by her HEALTH VISITOR, her DOCTOR and HOSPITAL MEDICS.
And when her GP finally arranged an appointment FIVE MONTHS away she kept on battling, knowing every day counted for her son.
"It just wasn't good enough. I was worried sick about him but I was made to feel like an over-anxious mum," says Tracy, 27.
Her persistence paid off when Ethan was fast-tracked up the waiting list. And when he was finally allowed to see a specialist Tracy and husband Graham, 29, had their worst suspicions confirmed - scans showed the lump was a tumour.
"The doctors were astonished - and so were we," said Tracy. "We never thought someone could have this so young.
"And they said it was aggressive too, which was terrifying." The disease normally affects males from 15 to 34. Only a handful of children under nine are diagnosed each year.
Tracy and Graham were told there was a 90 per cent recovery rate if it was detected early - but that it could have spread quickly if it had gone unchecked.
Then they faced six months of anguish as their little boy underwent gruelling chemotherapy.
"Ethan was so sick during the treatment," says Tracy. "It was heartbreaking to watch. All I could do was cuddle him as he whimpered. "I kept asking the doctors whether he would die, and they couldn't tell us whether he was going to make it through or not." But Ethan fought through and got the all-clear, his chances of survival having been boosted by his battling mum. "I'd noticed the lump when I was changing his nappy," says Tracy who also has a 13-week-old son Oliver.
"The health visitor said not to worry but I took him to the GP. He said it would disappear.
"But as the days went by the lump didn't go away and I started to get more and more worried about it."
So determined Tracy, of Wishaw, Lanarkshire, took Ethan back. "They still insisted at the surgery that it was fluid so I took him to hospital," she says. "But I was just sent home again and made to feel as though I was overreacting."
Urgent
In desperation, she went BACK to her GP who referred her to Yorkhill Sick Children's Hospital. "They said it would be five months before we got an appointment, but I wasn't having that," says Tracy.
"So I went back to the doctor and asked for him to be fasttracked as an urgent case. He did that and a few days later we went to the hospital for the tests that showed Ethan had cancer."
Ethan will now to have regular check-ups - but his parents have been told the worst is over. Tracy says: "We feel very lucky and I'm just so glad I kept taking him back again and again.
"Now he has so much energy it's hard to believe he was so ill."
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