A mother desperate to help her three-year-old feel better, took her to the doctor 11 times, only to be told she was merely constipated. Tragically, the young girl died in her mother’s arm only weeks later.
Eilish Flanagan took her daughter, Aoife Flanagan-Gibbs, to the doctor after she complained of pains in her stomach and other areas of her body. Initially, doctors told her that Aoife was constipated.
“She’d been in and out of [the] hospital with different infections and problems,” the mother told Essex Live in the UK, “but they kept telling us she had common child constipation.”
However, Aoife also felt pain in her other parts of her body and also had a tumor in her bottom, according to her mom.
“As a mother, I knew there was something else wrong,” she told Essex Live. “I raised my concerns and she had pains in other areas of her body but the doctors never examined her. She had a tumor on her bottom, but they failed to investigate it.”
After weeks of pushing doctors to look into it more, an X-ray revealed that Aoife did have a tumor in her liver.
“She had a huge tumor in her liver blocking her bowel,” her mom told Essex Live. “When we were waiting to be transferred to [that hospital], we were shown an X-ray, and you could see the diseases and tumors. We were aware it was in her liver and we knew we were in a bad situation.”
According to Children with Cancer UK, germ cell cancer, the rare form of childhood cancer that Aoife had, has a 93 percent survival rate if treated quickly.
Unfortunately, doctors diagnosed her too late and she died due to cardiac arrest.
Aoife’s family has set up a GoFundMe page to help raise awareness about germ cell cancer.
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