Doctors told football-loving teen his migraines and panic attacks were caused by too much use of his phone… eight months later scans revealed massive brain tumor

The family of a boy suffering from a rare brain tumor have claimed doctors dismissed his cancer as a migraine and told him to stop ‘using his phone’.

Oscar Fairs, from Benfleet in Essex, was an otherwise healthy teenager.

But in 2022, the now 14-year-old suddenly suffered from panic attacks, severe headaches and even heart palpitations.

His concerned mother, Natalie, took him to the GP but claims she was told Oscar’s problems were mental health related and he was referred to counselling.

Over the course of eight months, further appointments blamed his symptoms on headaches and he was advised to sit ‘in a dark room’.

Only after she subsequently took him to A&E did scans reveal he had a two-inch tumor known as an ependymoma – a rare form of cancer that affects the brain and spine.

Recalling Oscar’s terrifying ordeal, Mrs Fairs said: ‘I believe every child up to a certain age should have a mandatory MRI scan to save more lives.

‘Someone is responsible for the eight months leading up to Oscar’s tumor diagnosis: mental health and migraines.

‘I gave them five or six symptoms in May and yet they still haven’t given us a scan.

‘The doctor who finally took him to his ward was speechless when I told him it had taken eight months before we were finally seen for a brain MRI.

“They think the tumor had been in his head for two years before that.”

She added: ‘I have to be grateful that we have the NHS, where would I get the chemo and radio from, as well as the surgeons, pediatric oncologists and radiologists, but it hurts that it took eight months as they would be the professionals must be .’

Fewer than 50 children in Britain and around 200 in the US develop ependymomas each year.

The survival rate is normally high: more than 60 percent of patients are still alive after five years.

They start in the ependymal cells, which line the fluid-filled areas of the brain and spinal cord.

Symptoms of ependymoma include vomiting, seizures, and increased head circumference.

Some children may have symptoms for several weeks or months before they are diagnosed with ependymoma. But they can often be mistaken for other, less serious diseases.

Brain tumors are also the biggest cancer killers in children.

Young people can usually only receive radiotherapy; Chemotherapy is rarely given because it is often ineffective because few drugs can cross the protective blood-brain barrier.

It also carries the risk of side effects such as depleted bone marrow and skull damage.

After Oscar first started experiencing palpitations and numbness, the doctor asked him “if he felt anxious,” said Ms. Fairs, an emotional literacy support assistant.

“I’ve been told if it happens again, he has to come back,” she added.

But when he had a panic attack while climbing stairs weeks later, Doctors dismissed her concerns and attributed it to a mental health issue, she claimed.

Ms Fairs said: ‘If you look at a child and a mother tells you his heart is beating out of his chest and he has weakness in his arm, you can’t tell me it’s mental health.’

It was only when she later took him to Southend Hospital A&E and ‘told (the doctors) he was dying’ that he was referred for scans.

She said: ‘The doctor asked Oscar to smile and one side of his face didn’t move. I was convinced it was a stroke. I wasn’t aware of brain tumors.

‘He went to the hospital for an MRI and they told us we had saved our baby’s life.

‘I will never forgive myself for telling him to lean to the other side when he had pain in his arm.

“But in the end no one listened to me.”

Despite seven operations to remove the tumor in his head, the family were told to prepare Oscar, who played football for West Ham U14s, for palliative care.

However, chemotherapy and radiotherapy fortunately shrank the tumor and he was allowed to participate in a clinical trial.

“A week in January we were told there was shrinkage so they started a trial and no one with an ependymoma had had a trial like that before,” Ms Fairs said.

‘We burst into tears, ran around the house with happiness and I asked the oncologist where this would leave us now.

“They put him on trial and every two weeks they had pictures imported into his body and every two weeks he was given chemotherapy through the port into his system for four months.

‘An MRI showed that there has been no significant change since January.

‘So we met again with the radiotherapy surgeon and he is now giving him 54 volts of radiation for 30 days.

“It’s been six weeks now and we keep fighting.”

She added: ‘I need to spread the word to anyone who can help and who specializes in ependymomas and who can offer us treatment or surgery.

‘I am desperate for a cure to give my son life.

‘If there is anyone who can help save my child, please contact us. My son is priceless.’

Dr. Karen Noble, director of research, policy and innovation at Brain Tumor Research, said: ‘There is a chronic lack of therapies and clinical trials available for boys like Oscar.

‘There is no one size fits all when it comes to the treatment of brain tumors and our Center of Excellence in Plymouth continues the research into ependymomas and their complexities.

‘It is vital that appropriate research funding is provided so that parents like Natalie and Russell do not feel forced to look for hope abroad after exhausting what is currently available in Britain.

‘We have to offer it here. We are grateful to Natalie and her family for helping to raise awareness about brain tumors so that future generations who receive this devastating diagnosis can be helped.”