A mother has told how her two-year-old was a ‘normal happy, healthy toddler’ just days before a devastating diagnosis left the child fighting for her life.
Carlyn Dooley, from Corby, rushed her daughter Paisley to hospital on April 2 after she woke up with black rings around her eyes.
Initially, the 25-year-old thought Paisley might have injured herself playing and never expected she was about to hear news that would make her ‘whole world fall apart’.
‘They called us through and they said, “We’re really sorry, but we found a mass in your daughter’s tummy and we think it might be cancer”.’
‘I didn’t want to understand it at the start. My heart broke instantly’, Ms Dooley, who is 34 weeks pregnant, told MailOnline.
Paisley has Stage 4 High-Risk Neuroblastoma, a very aggressive and rare childhood cancer with a devastating 50 per cent survival rate.
The diagnosis came as a huge shock given that the child showed no prior symptoms of being unwell.
Paisley’s family have set up a GoFundMe to help them cover the future cost of her treatments – which could be in excess of £250,000.
‘Paisley was a normal, happy, healthy little one-year-old. She would run around, she would play, she’d go to playgroups three times a week,’ said Ms Dooley.
‘She was full of life. There were never any signs. There were never any indicators. She was just a normal, happy, healthy toddler.’
Paisley is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment which has had ‘horrible side effects’ including sickness and hair loss.
‘I don’t even have the words to describe it. It’s something I wouldn’t wish on anybody. We were just a normal, happy family,’ Ms Dooley said.
‘We were supposed to be bringing her baby brother into the world as a normal, happy family of four, and now we’re watching our daughter who has just turned two years old fight for her life.
‘It’s literally ripped us apart.’
Ms Dooley added: ‘It’s heartbreaking to see your normal, happy, healthy little girl that had beautiful long blonde hair be told she’s got cancer, start chemotherapy and lose her hair, I can’t even explain it.’
The distraught mother says Paisley is confused about why her hair is falling out but is too young to comprehend what’s happening.
‘She, she doesn’t really understand. We just say, “You’re just poorly, it will come back”, because how do you tell a two-year-old that they could die?’ Ms Dooley said.
Ms Dooley said Paisley has an ‘amazing’ attitude and has stayed cheerful throughout her numerous hospital visits.
‘She even runs up and down when she’s having chemo,’ her mother said.
The night before her diagnosis Paisley had fallen over while playing with her father Ross, but showed no signs of injury.
But, when Ms Dooley went in to wake the toddler up the next morning she was shocked to see ‘Paisley had big black bloodshot panda eyes.’
‘I had no idea what was going on. I thought maybe worst case scenario, like, she’s like, hurt herself, like quite badly,’ the mother recalled.
She took the child to hospital, expecting doctors to agree with her theory but knew something was ‘very wrong’ when medics told her this couldn’t be the case.
‘Even the hospital was concerned because I told them what had happened and they didn’t understand how the nature of her fall would cause the injuries that her face had.
‘Her face did look obviously really bruised but her eyes were bloodshot, a child falling over shouldn’t get bloodshot eyes,’ Ms Dooley said.
After conducting numerous scans and tests doctors found it was a cancer called High Risk Neuroblastoma that had caused the marks on Paisley’s face.
‘It’s a really hard cancer to tackle. That’s why treatments are minimum of 18 months long.
‘So much can go wrong at any time, ‘ said Ms Dooley.
She added how Paisley could get to remission but the chances of the cancer returning are more than 50 per cent.
And, if she can’t get to remission or she does not get to remission and then she relapses, Paisley survival rate drops to 5 per cent.
Ms Dooley said if this happens there is ‘not much that can be done on the NHS’ and she will need to pay for Paisley to be taken further a field for treatment – the cost of which ‘can be in excess of £250,000.’
‘There’s things that can be done overseas but that’s self-funding, which isn’t going to be cheap. That’s going to cost a lot of money,’ the mother added.
The toddler’s parents have set up a GoFundMe page to help them afford to pay for further treatment should it be needed.
