My wonderful son, Mason, who has autism and is obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog. Over the past few months, our lives have been completely turned upside down. On February 7, 2024, Mason went for a child-friendly head MRI scan because I’d taken him to A&E for some neck pain he was experiencing.
This turned out to be ‘torticollis’ which is a cluster of neck spasms. While seeing the doctor, I mentioned that Mason sometimes gets headaches, which were infrequent and didn’t follow any pattern. Often, when I picked him up from school, he’d say he was tired from all the work. We were offered a scan for peace of mind, as Mason otherwise seemed like a happy, healthy boy.
Two days after Mason’s scan, I received a call from the hospital. They told me we had to come in that day because they’d found something on Mason’s scan. I knew this could never be good news. After a discussion with the oncology team, they told us that the scan showed a brain tumour on the left side of Mason’s brain. It was the worst possible news any parent could hear.
Mason was back in the hospital the following week for more blood tests, intensive scans, and a lumbar puncture procedure. The baffling part was that we were told the headaches and neck pain were completely unrelated to the tumour. They called it an ‘incidental finding’, as Mason showed no symptoms. Despite what we’re going through, our family still feels very blessed to have found it before it led to neurological deficits for Mason.
In March, Mason underwent major brain surgery. He was in the theatre for eight-and-a-half hours that day, the worst wait of my life. He was sent straight to critical care, and the doctors had no idea how he’d recover from this. However, he stunned everyone - he was an absolute powerhouse and walked out of the hospital just five days later. Absolutely incredible!
On Thursday, March 28, I returned to the hospital to receive the pathology results from Mason’s tumour. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the news we wanted to hear. Mason was diagnosed with a grade 3 choroid plexus carcinoma, a rare and aggressive type of malignant cancer. Due to the rarity of the disease, it’s difficult to establish a clear prognosis, so Mason will be treated on an individual basis.
Since then, Mason has had his Hickman line fitted in preparation for starting his intense cycles of chemotherapy treatment. We’ve no idea how Mason’s body will respond to this treatment, but we can only hope that it works and that my boy will fight this every step of the way. You don’t quite know what to do or say when you’re told your child has cancer. It makes you realise what truly matters in life and how much we complain about things that are just mildly inconvenient. It highlights how fragile life is and the importance of making the best of what you have while you have it.
Learn the signs and symptoms of childhood cancer