On the 1st of August 2012 I took our gorgeous five month old baby boy to the doctor thinking he had reflux, as he hadn’t been feeding very well for about 1-2 weeks.

Our family doctor didn’t think he had reflux and felt his stomach where he could feel a large lump. He sent us straight to The Royal Children’s Hospital and within the hour we were told he had a tumour and would need to have surgery and about 10 weeks of chemotherapy.

Obviously we were devastated as you never in your wildest nightmares think that your five month old would be diagnosed with cancer. The following day he had his first of many CT scans which revealed a large tumour attached to his kidney.

On the 3rd of August (my 23rd birthday) Mason went for surgery to have the tumour and his kidney removed. Surgery went well but we were told we had to wait for pathology of the tumour before a final diagnoses. 

Five days later we were called into a room with about 10 doctors, surgeons, nurses, social workers, etc and were told that Mason actually had a very rare and aggressive tumour. He would need 30 weeks of chemotherapy, six days of radiation, more scans and tests to check if the tumour had already spread to other places, and that we would need to do blood tests as this cancer can be genetic.

Masons treatment ended up being about 10 and a half months and in May he had his last cycle. He still has CT scans every 3 months and during his treatment he had six chest and stomach x-rays, four brain MRIs, four ultrasounds, five heart echoes, finger pricks every week (sometimes 2-3 times a week), over 20 general anaesthetics, the dressings on his chest changed every week, two bone scans, five kidney and liver tests and two hearing tests.

Every test he had everyone always said what a happy and gorgeous baby he was and our oncologist Dr Francoise said she wanted to be his grandma!

At the moment Mason is cancer free and we just hope as everyday passes that his cancer never comes back and that the rest of his life is happy and healthy.

– Kirsty