Beatrix was diagnosed with Wilms tumour a few weeks after her first birthday in August 2021. Her mum, Ellouise, shares her story.
In August 2021, our little lady was diagnosed with Wilms tumour stage 2 (46cm tumour growing on her right kidney). We started to notice her belly feeling hard and put it down to constipation and just a baby's pop belly. A few weeks later, her clothes seemed to not fit around her tummy - she'd be having bowel movements but still a hard belly.
So, we took her to the GP surgery, and the nurse suggested it was just her muscle makeup. The following week, we managed to see a doctor who said I should take her to Accident and Emergency to have an ultrasound and x-ray (I thought to see where the constipation blockage was). Little did I know this was the start of her cancer journey.
Our first stay in the hospital was a little over a week, but within this time, she had an ultrasound, x-ray, bloods, ECG, MRI, CT and her wiggly fitted and first chemo treatment.
Bea was able to have her treatment as an outpatient and had an initial five weeks of chemo, which shrunk the tumour enough to have successful surgery to remove the tumour and her right kidney. She then had 20 more weeks of chemo over 31 weeks. After a few more scans, she could then have her wiggly removed, and after ten months of being in and out of the hospital, she could turn two with the freedom to explore and enjoy life.
She is now nine months in remission. Being told your baby has cancer is always going to be hard - for us as a family, we found it particularly challenging with the COVID restrictions within the hospital. If we had to stay in the hospital, we were in the general children's ward rather than oncology, which meant only I could be with Bea, and her papa was not there to support us. This has had an impact on our emotions in different ways and continues to impact us all.
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