Doctors took months to take a mum seriously as she alerted them to her daughter’s condition and requested a simple check-up blood draw. The child was eventually diagnosed with leukemia, a blood cancer.
- In adolescents aged 15 to 17, 16% of cancer cases are leukemia according to the Foundation for Cancer Research.
- Symptoms of leukemia can be bone or abdominal pain, swollen glands, enlargement of the spleen or liver, etc.
For 10 months, doctors repeated to Ilona Zahorszki, the mother of Theano, a three-year-old girl, that the latter was fine and that these were normal reactions to benign pathologies.
No blood test for benign pathologies
Since entering the crèche in August, her daughter suffered from repeated illnesses: colds, various infections… “Every time I went to see a doctor, I asked for blood tests, explains lona Zahorszki to the media DailyMail. I knew something was wrong because his whole personality had changed. She wanted hugs all the time and no longer ran. Before getting sick, she was a very active child. She had many friends. She had also started having temper tantrums. I asked that she be sent to a pediatric clinic to check why she was sick all the time. But the GP told me she was normal.”
The little girl then had new symptoms, including pain in her leg. “We were told at the first hospitalization that it was a soft tissue injury, then we were told that it was some kind of childhood arthritis“, continues the mother. By mid-November, Theano had great difficulty walking and was too sick to go to nursery.
“She started having a stomach ache, develop the mother. She became constipated and complained of pain. She cried all day and her leg still hurt.“But, even at this stage, the doctors play down by diagnosing constipation and giving him laxatives while refusing to give him blood tests.
The condition of the little girl therefore worsened until December 31, when her parents decided, because of the increase in her symptoms, to take her to the hospital. This time, the doctors carried out blood tests and discovered that the little girl was very sick… She had leukaemia, with 81% of the blood cells in the bone marrow affected.
Blood cancer: leukemia diagnosed in children
“The doctor told me his leukemia probably started three or four months ago when all the colds and infections started.explains Ilona Zahorszki. A doctor told me she would have only been a month or two [d’espérance de vie] if I hadn’t entered when I did. I just want to tell other moms that when they feel something is wrong, they should keep telling their doctor.“Today, the little girl has a very good survival prognosis.
Leukemias are cancers of white blood cells or cells that develop into white blood cells, depending on the MSD Manual. They are divided into four main types based on how quickly they grow and the characteristics of the white blood cells that become cancerous: acute lymphoid leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and chronic myeloid leukemia.
In France, according to Cancer Research Foundation29% of the 1,780 new cases of cancer diagnosed in children under 15 are leukemia.
