Twenty-two month-old Daisy Stovell was only 11 days old when she was diagnosed with cancer, making her one of the youngest cancer patients in Britain. After the infant, who was born with breathing difficulties, underwent a series of tests she was sedated in order to examine her for what they believed was a throat obstruction. While she was sedated the doctors carried out a routine eye check which revealed that she had retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer.
Only 40 to 50 cases of this disease are seen in the UK every year, and many of the children who have it are not diagnosed until the tumor is too large for their sight to be saved. Daisy’s cancer was caught when it was small, and she received her first round of chemotherapy at age 3 and one-half weeks. After two rounds of chemo the tumor had shrunk by over 50 percent. Laser treatment administered over months eradicated the rest of the growth.
Daisy was delivered 5 days late, by Cesarean section, and weighed only 6 pounds. She was thought to have an infection due to swallowing amniotic fluid, so she was placed on antibiotics. Doctors thought she had an issue with her throat when she failed to respond to the medication. It was during the surgery to examine her throat, which ended up being only a”a bit floppy,” that the eye tumor was found.
Daisy’s mom, 38-year-old Sally Stovell, was shocked at the thought of her 3-week-old baby having chemotherapy, but said she trusted the doctors. Daisy received her first round of chemo in the neonatal ward and then, finally, was allowed home with her parents for the first time at 5 weeks old.
The family was devastated when doctors said the tumor had seen a slight regrowth when Daisy was about 6 months old. After continuing with treatment it slowly disappeared, and she has been in remission for 14 months. Trips to Birmingham are necessary every 10 weeks for check-ups.
Daisy, who also wears hearing aids, has gone under general anesthesia about 30 times in order for her eyes to be examined. She also has a chromosonal deletion syndrome that caused her throat problems at birth. This has corrected itself as she has grown, but she still has weak muscle tone that has resulted in her to still being unable to walk at almost 2 years old. This condition may be related to the retinoblastoma gene, and the Stovells have been warned that their child could develop more tumors in the future.
The tot still has to wear an eye patch every morning to help strengthen the muscles in the eye that had the tumor.
The case of the 11-day-old cancer victim has been presented to hospitals all over the UK to show the value of routine eye checks in newborns.