When parents Scott and Natalie Bolton first noticed their daughter Ava was pale and lethargic in December 2022 they thought she might have picked up a virus. The three-year-old was also vomiting.
But when she started walking with a limp and then developed bruising around her eyes they sought medical help.
Scott, 34, recalled: “She was walking with a limp and she wasn’t feeling herself. She started to refuse to walk and bruising started to appear around her eyes – she wasn’t feeling good either.
“We took her to the GP who we had an emergency appointment with and they told us to go straight to our local hospital.”
Initially doctors suspected Ava, from Mauchline in Scotland, was suffering from transient erythroblastopenia of childhood – a slowly developing anaemia that occurs in early childhood.
However, Natalie and Scott were “not prepared” for what followed.
“Ava had further checks and they sampled her bone marrow,” technician Scott said. “Preliminary results came back that night which showed abnormal cells.
“She then had a second bone marrow test and a CT scan which confirmed that Ava had cancer.”
In February this year it was confirmed that little Ava had stage four high-risk neuroblastoma, a very aggressive and rare childhood cancer with a poor survival rate.
Scott said: “We were so shocked, you never imagine that you are going to be told your little girl has cancer.”
Since then brave Ava has had eight rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is due to start immunotherapy next week.
“She has coped really well, she has taken it in her stride,” Scott said.
“It is not until you see them through something like this that you realise how resilient they are.”
All throughout Ava’s treatment, Scott and Natalie have been fundraising to fly Ava to New York for a new vaccination that will stop her cancer from returning.
The family have raised more than £293,000 and are continuing to fundraise as they don’t know the full cost of her treatment.
Scott added: “Ava needs to finish her NHS treatment before we can fly over there.
“Once she has completed the immunotherapy we will find out if she is completely free of cancer – if not we will carry on with the treatment.
“I feel very mixed emotions about what we have been going through as a family but we are so grateful for all the support we have received.”
To donate visit gofund.me/cf50aac4.
The most common symptom of neuroblastoma is a lump in the tummy but it depends where the cancer spreads.
According to Cancer Research UK, other signs include:
- Numbness
- Weakness
- Loss of movement in the lower part of the body
- Breathlessness
- Difficulty swallowing.
If your child experiences any unexplained symptoms you should speak to a GP.
