Tell me what’s wrong with my boy
NOW CANCER SHOCK HAS GONE, THEY WANT TO HELP OTHERS
AFTER a year of medics being unable to pinpoint what was wrong with her son, distraught mum Claire Cochrane finally went to A&E and refused to leave without a diagnosis.
Harrison had been plagued with weight loss, night sweats and seizures for almost 12 months, but numerous hospital visits had failed to discover the problem.
The eight-year-old’s mum rushed him to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary in November 2014 after a sleepless night when his lips started to turn blue.
And she was stunned to discover he had Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer which had left him with tumours in his chest and stomach.
“At the time I just kept thinking they had made a mistake – I didn’t believe it could be cancer,” said Claire. “I knew something was wrong but I wasn’t expecting that.”
Almost a year before his diagnosis, Harrison collapsed in the bathroom and had a seizure.
The South Shields schoolboy had numerous hospital appointments but no one could get to the bottom of his mysterious symptoms.
Claire, 41, said: “He’d had a really bad night – he just cried all night and his lips went blue.
“I just took him to A&E and refused to leave until someone did something.
“A nurse examined him and it went from there – we didn’t go home after that for five weeks.”
In December 2014 Harrison was diagnosed with the disease.
Devastated Claire had to ring her husband Pete, who was working offshore in Thailand, to tell him their son had cancer.
Harrison, who had tumours in his chest and stomach, went on a clinical trial and started chemotherapy within a matter of days.
After six months he then underwent 18 rounds of radiotherapy.
During Harrison’s treatment Claire left her job as a pharmacy dispenser to look after him.
But in August 2015 the family received the news they had been praying for when doctors said he was in remission.
Claire said: “It was amazing - nothing could have burst our bubble that day because I think we’d prepared ourselves for the worst.
“But it was scary because you start thinking about if it will come back.
“During Harrison’s treatment, I was just focusing on getting him through every day and the enormity of what happened only really hit me afterwards.”
Now Harrison is supporting TK Maxx’s Give Up Clothes for Good campaign in support of Cancer Research UK Kids & Teens.
The Westoe Crown Primary School pupil, who returned to class last week after the summer break, wants people to donate unwanted good quality clothing, accessories and homeware to their nearest TK Maxx to help children like him.
Donated items are being collected from all TK Maxx stores across the UK.