Baby massage saved son’s life
A MUM who feared her baby had cancer was proved right after five medics ruled it out.
Nicola Carpenter found a tiny lump at the top of son Alec’s leg while practising a technique learned at a baby massage class.
Alec had an appointment for his 12- week immunisation injections that morning so Nicola, 38, showed the nurse.
But she said it was nothing sinister – and Nicola was given the same message by three GPs when she repeatedly made appointments after lumps spread across his body.
“Every time I went to an appointment I’d be asked if I was a first-time parent and if Alec’s birth was traumatic,” says Nicola.
“They were suggesting that I was being over-protective.”
Sick of being dismissed, Nicola and husband Glen, 40, took Alec to A& E at Ipswich Hospital when they saw swelling and bruising around their son’s eyes.
There, an A&E doctor wrongly suggested Alec may have neurofibroma, a life-shortening illness that causes tumours on nerve tissue, and to go back to their GP.
“I was hysterical,” says Nicola.
“Alec’s birth had been difficult and he was unable to breathe by himself for the first four hours.
“I was in such a state I called my health visitor, who made an appointment at the hospital.” There, an oncologist told the couple that Alec had stage-four neuroblastoma – seven weeks after the first lump was found.
Alec, who has just had his first birthday, endured four sessions of chemotherapy and a major operation to remove a tumour in his chest in September.
Chemotherapy
Nicola says: “Alec appeared so healthy before his diagnosis so it was a shock when the chemotherapy made him so poorly. “He slept in our bed continually because we worried about him being sick in the night.” Nicola, a tailor from Ipswich, said A Alec’s operation involv involved his ribs being opene opened up – but he was back crawling within weeks. “He’s a c cheeky little one and very so social,” she says. “I was lucky to meet lots of other mums at classes who have been with us every step of the way, despite our friendships being relatively new.”
Nicola now hopes to encourage mums to attend baby massage classes so they get to know and check their children’s bodies.
And she says she holds no animosity towards the medics who failed to spot the cancer.
“I’ve done a lot of research and the blue lumps that developed are quite rare and only the specialist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge had seen them in the flesh before.
“But I would urge doctors not to brush off the concerns of firsttime mums. We really do know when there is something wrong.
“We are the ones who know them best and I’ll be forever grateful that I signed Alec up for that baby massage class.”
Nicola is supporting the Cancer Research UK Kids & Teens Star Awards, which celebrate the bravery of children diagnosed with cancer. To find out more s ee cruk. org/ kidsandteens.