My five-year-old’s bout of ‘heat stroke’ was actually aggressive brain cancer that spread to her spine — here are the warning signs I missed here

A mother of a five-year-old child with aggressive brain cancer has told how she mistook the early warning signs of the disease for an episode of severe heat stroke.

Holly Brown, 31, a stay-at-home mum from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, initially thought her daughter Olivia had spent too long in the sun when she started vomiting one morning in May.

But for the rest of that week the illness did not let up. Moreover, it was accompanied by crippling exhaustion.

Finally, in mid-June, Mrs. Brown took her little girl with her took her to the emergency room for further examination.

At this point she appeared ‘wobbly on her feet,” and one of her eyes looked a little “crooked.”

Worried, doctors began a series of tests, including detailed scans.

Devastatingly, the results showed she had a brain tumor, although doctors were not yet sure what type or how advanced the disease was.

Olivia was immediately rushed in for emergency surgery to create an external ventricular drainage system to clear a blockage that was preventing her spinal fluid from draining.

Medulloblastomas are a type of brain tumor that typically affects young children and affects movement and balance.

And within a few days, she had undergone an eight-hour surgery to remove 95 percent of the tumor.

The remaining five percent were too close to the brain to be removed without causing damage.

A week later, doctors told the family that Olivia had grade three medulloblastoma – a type of tumor that develops in the cerebellum at the back of the brain, the area responsible for balance and movement.

According to Brain Tumor Research, these types of brain tumors are typically diagnosed within the first five years of life. The doctors also discovered that the cancer had spread to her spine.

Mrs Brown said: ‘I burst into tears, I was devastated.’

She struggled to explain the situation to her three other children, who were used to always having her around for support.

She said: ‘I think my eldest is probably having it the hardest because she understands a lot more than the others so she can be quite withdrawn but I just did my very best to reassure her and let her know that she can. talk to me.”

Olivia’s treatment planned a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and offered a 50 percent survival rate, but carried the risk of future learning difficulties.

Olivia gets ‘a little upset’ and ‘a little scared’, but according to her mother she took it all ‘pretty well’.

‘Doctors said chemotherapy and radiotherapy could lower her IQ and she would most likely develop learning difficulties,’ Ms Brown said.

During this time, Mrs. Brown found it difficult to know what to say to Olivia about her condition.

‘Olivia gets quite upset sometimes, which is understandable given everything she’s been through.

“She gets a little scared when she has to do things, but overall she’s handled it well.

‘I tell her as much as I can, appropriate for her age, in a way she understands.

‘I won’t go into too much detail, but I told her that she has cancer and that she needs to undergo some treatments to get better. It’ll take a long time, that’s really all I can do.’

In August, Olivia underwent two five-day rounds of chemotherapy, during which she lost her hair.

‘She took it very well, the hospital gave us a children’s book explaining chemotherapy, I think that helped her calm her mind.

Olivia’s mother Holly plans to turn the family home into a Christmas grotto for her daughter

The cancer treatment has shrunk Olivia’s tumor, but it is likely that the radiotherapy has caused her learning difficulties.

‘She was a bit angry about what happened, but when it happened I think, probably because she’s young, she didn’t mind it that much.

“I collected her hair, I kept it. I think that might have helped and I told her it will grow back.”

Between the two rounds, doctors told the family that the brain tumor had shrunk, but the exact size and status of the cancer in her spine remained unclear due to the buildup of fluid.

In September, Olivia received six weeks of proton beam therapy, a form of radiotherapy that uses high-energy protons to treat cancer, as part of a clinical trial.

After radiotherapy, Olivia suffered from painful, flaky skin and extreme nausea and nausea. As a result, she had to be tube fed for several weeks.

Olivia’s medical team has scheduled another scan on December 4 to reassess the tumor and will begin six to nine months of further chemotherapy on December 9.

Until then, the family is uncertain about what lies ahead.

“The hardest part is not knowing, it feels like everything is up in the air,” Ms Brown said.

Determined to make the most of Christmas, Mrs Brown and her mother, Amanda, set up a GoFundMe to transform the family home into a Santa’s Grotto in December.

‘We don’t really know how well she’s doing because she’s having chemotherapy in December, so it’s not a good idea to take her anywhere.

‘We just wanted to make it as good as possible at home – just fill the house with decorations, make it a kind of Christmas cave. We want valuable Christmas memories.’

Looking back on the past year, she thinks her experiences have made her appreciate her family even more.

‘I think about things that used to upset me – now it doesn’t matter.

“None of that mattered, the most important things are your family and health and appreciating what you have.”