Mum says 'use instincts' after son's cancer diagnosis
Lucas loves to game, according to his mum Hayleigh
- Published
A mother has warned other parents to follow their instincts after her 12-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer.
Lucas, from Beaumont Leys, in Leicester, lost almost a stone (6kg) over two weeks, but his mother Hayleigh and her partner DJ were told by a GP it could be anxiety-related.
Undeterred, they took him to A&E and he was discovered to have stage four Burkitt lymphoma, which affects white blood cells.
He is now receiving chemotherapy and the family said they had been told by medics that their son should recover.
Hayleigh said: "Chemo is brutal. He's doing his best. His cancer is responding well to the treatment, so that's good.
“He'd been suffering with pains in his legs and I've been backwards and forwards to the GP and nurse practitioner. Nothing ever really came of that.
"He continued to deteriorate. Then he couldn't eat properly, so I took him to the GP, but the GP said it was anxiety, so I wasn't happy with that."
Parents DJ and Hayleigh were "really moved" by the support shown to a fundraiser for Lucas
Hayleigh eventually took Lucas to A&E and said it was "a massive shock" and "very scary" when the diagnosis of cancer was given.
"[The medical staff] said it's highly curable and they are very confident that with the chemotherapy treatment that he's going to be able to live a normal life after this," she said.
"But his treatment is going to take at least eight months."
Hayleigh advised other parents to follow their instincts when they knew their child was sick.
"I knew he wasn't right," she said about the GP, adding that the staff at Leicester Royal Infirmary had been "amazing" since Lucas's diagnosis.
A fundraiser was launched by family friend Kennedy Bates to buy Lucas a gaming PC to play on as he undergoes chemotherapy, with more than £1,900 raised so far.
When asked about the fundraiser, Hayleigh said: "It was really moving. I was really emotional reading it.
"We just want Lucas to be excited to go home and he knows he's going to have a brilliant gaming PC."
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