A family who thought their young daughter had flu found out she had a rare form of cancer in a devastating turn of events.
Indeg Roberts had been vomiting on-and-off for months and was dramatically losing weight before doctors discovered she had a brain tumour in November 2020. Indeg's mum Ceri said she was concerned about her daughter's symptoms but never thought a brain tumour would be the cause.
After Indeg went completely off her food she was taken to her local GP who referred her to hospital. Ceri said when Indeg was taken for a CT scan she started to fear the little girl had a tumour.
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Ceri said: "When the doctor said it was a brain tumour, I just fell to my knees and cried and cried - it was like an out of body experience. Because of covid I was on my own, so I had to ring Indeg’s dad and tell him, which was horrible.”
NorthWalesLive reported Indeg, from Gwynedd, was diagnosed with a cancer called Ependymoma - which is only found in around 30 children every year in the UK. She was transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital where she underwent a nine-hour operation to remove the tumour.
Indeg then underwent a gruelling treatment regime where she received radiotherapy and five rounds of chemotherapy. In December 2020 she also underwent proton beam therapy and had to spend Christmas at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester.
Ceri said: “We moved to Manchester for two months while she had the treatment. We’d never been away from her sisters before and we were a long way from home. It was very upsetting to be away at Christmas, and Indeg was so poorly – though I think she coped better than I did."
Ceri said Indeg and her three sisters aged five, 10, and 13, have “all had to grow up quickly” since the diagnosis. She added: "It was absolutely heartbreaking that we were so far away from each other, looking back I actually don't know how we did it, I don't know how we coped."
Following her gruelling ordeal Make-A-Wish UK got in touch with the family and donated a custom-built climbing frame to Indeg so she could play with her sisters. Ceri said: “Even during five cycles of chemotherapy, Indeg would ask to go to the park whenever we could.
"Playing outside and using the climbing frame really got her through those dark times. It's one of the first things she said when we told her about the wish, she made her mind up that that's what she wanted very quickly."
Chief Executive at Make-A-Wish UK Jason Suckley said: “When a child like Indeg is diagnosed with a critical condition, the joy of childhood is brought to an abrupt end with treatment plans, appointments and worry taking over. The power of a wish – in this case, a climbing frame - revives a childhood stolen by critical illness, by giving Indeg and her sisters a place to simply be children again."
The treatment for Indeg's cancer was a success, but she will continue to have routine scans every few months for the next five years to make sure she's cancer-free. And although things are looking positive, Ceri said she'll always worry about her daughter.
She said: "I’ll always worry about her, whenever she mentions a headache I panic, and the fear of it coming back is horrible, but I know that we’ve done everything we can. When I look out the window and see Indeg and her sisters enjoying themselves out in the garden, after everything they’ve been through, I can't put into words. It’s the best feeling - it just means the world."
