Six-year-old boy's Christmas Day rash diagnosed as cancer
A mother who found a strange rash all over her six-year-old son’s body on Christmas Day that turned out to be cancer wants other parents to be aware of the signs.
Danielle Everson said she wasn’t surprised when doctors at the Grange Hospital informed her that her son Kian had early stage acute lymphoblastic leukaemia after googling his symptoms.
A month on Kian, from Blackwood, is into his fourth week of chemotherapy and has had to battle his symptoms while also suffering with Covid but he and his family are staying positive.
“Kian was really poorly and it was in December, sort of mid-December,” said mother of four boys Danielle. “I put it down to his friends at school having Covid and colds going around.
Kian didn’t have Covid at the time but he had a cold and a cough.
“He was awfully pale but because he’d been kickboxing with his twin brother I just thought it was probably because the boys were being a bit rough with him.“It was only when I noticed he had little purple pin-prick marks over him when I thought I needed help. I googled the symptom and it said the marks were a sign of leukaemia. So I phoned my dad and said 'I think Kian has cancer' and he said: ‘Don’t believe everything you read on Google’.“I waited until the Monday but the doctors still wasn’t open so I rang 111. He was so fatigued, he had no energy and kept going back to bed.“We went up to the Grange and within two hours we found out he had leukaemia.”
Staff at the Grange told Danielle how important it was that she’d seen the signs of leukaemia early and acted fast.“I wasn’t shocked with the news,” she said. “It’s mother’s instinct isn’t it? Something kicked in. Of course it’s very sad news and not what we wanted to hear but we’re pleased it’s been caught early and we are staying positive.”
After recovering from Covid the Blackwood Primary School student can now begin treatment again at the Noah’s Ark children’s hospital in Cardiff.
“Considering everything he is going through he is doing amazingly. He has started to lose his hair and he is sore often. We are taking it step by step and hoping the chemo does its job and he reacts well to it.“He’ll be having chemo for three years so it’s a long process. It’s been stressful. Kian’s twin brother Kelan doesn’t really understand why we are in hospital so often with him. It’s a lot to take in.”
Danielle says the response from the community in Blackwood has been “astonishing”.
“We don’t rely on charity funding but we just want to give back to charities helping Kian,” she added.
“There are so many poorly children there and there is so much fantastic work being done. We want to use this moment for something good to give back to those charities.”
“We have lots on. We’re doing charity walks. We’ve asked the school to do an orange clothes day on the last day of term where the kids can dress up and take a pound in. And a local printing and embroidery company is making ‘Kian’s Army’ clothing and £2 from every purchase is being donated.
“I’m astonished by everything that is going on for him. It’s really overwhelming and we can’t thank everyone enough.“We are not sure whether Kian’s treatment will work but at the moment Kian has a strong chance of coming through it. We’re a bit unsure but we have lots of hope.”