Girl's brain tumour misdiagnosed as migraines for three years, says mum

An 11-year-old girl's brain tumour was misdiagnosed as migraines and sickness bugs for nearly three years before it was spotted, her mum has said.

Tia Gordon from Northampton is recovering after a 10-hour operation to remove the growth, which was eventually found after an emergency scan.

Her mother, Imogen Darby, said her daughter's condition was not taken seriously enough when she first started showing symptoms during the Covid lockdown in March 2020.

Tia was assessed by medics around 30 times on multiple trips to GPs and A&E and also had her glasses prescription changed four times before the tumour was found.

Ms Darby said: “I was told Tia had stomach bugs and migraines. The first thing I was told, because it was the summer, (was that) she just needed to drink more water.

“After probably a year, she got diagnosed with migraines and they gave her paracetamol for that."

The severity of Tia's symptoms progressed until she was being sick nearly every day between November 2023 to January 2024.

“It got really bad,” Ms Darby said. “She was – every single morning – throwing up and it wasn’t just throwing up, it was projectile vomiting.”

In the few days before Tia was admitted to hospital, the little girl also seemed wobbly.

“She was tipping her milk out in the kitchen sink,” Ms Darby said.

“She was standing there and she was tipping it and it was just all tipping down the front of the sink and she didn’t notice she was doing it at all.

“I had to say, ‘Tia, you’re spilling milk all over the floor, what are you doing? And she [...] hadn’t noticed.”

The following day, Tia’s school phoned to say she was holding her neck strangely and was a bit off-balance.

Ms Darby was told to bring Tia to Northampton General Hospital in the evening. While there, Tia was unable to walk in a straight line.

A CT scan revealed Tia’s tumour, which is a pilocytic astrocytoma – the most common type of childhood brain tumour.

An ambulance was called to take her to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.

Tia was operated on over a 10-hour period and the benign tumour was removed.

“It was quite a horrendous day,” Ms Darby said. “From the surgery, they managed to get 96% of it out.”

Since surgery to remove the growth, Tia gets very tired and can still be unbalanced, her mother said.

She will have an MRI scan every three months for the next five years and is undergoing physiotherapy, as well as having regular meetings with neurologists.

Cameron Miller, director of external affairs and strategy at the Brain Tumour Charity, said: “We wish Tia all the best with her continuing treatment and thank Imogen for sharing her story.

“Sadly, it’s one that we often hear. For many brain tumour patients, it simply takes too long to be diagnosed – and this is one of the reasons why we’re calling for a National Brain Tumour Strategy.”

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