The start of Kalem’s lymphoma story
At the start of February 2011, my youngest son Kalem, who was 10 at the time, started talking through his nose and I thought he was coming down with a cold.
On 1 February, I looked in his mouth and saw a swelling at the back, it was so big that it pushed his uvula to the side. We went straight to the GP and our doctor referred us to our local hospital.
An ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist saw us and thought it was a type of abscess. He tried drawing fluid from it three times but nothing came out.
We were sent away with two different types of antibiotics and tried to carry on as normal, because no-one had told us to do otherwise. Exactly a week later, medication was finished but the swelling had not changed and Kalem had started to snore during the night, so back to the GP we went!
He sent us straight back to the local hospital and we saw a different ENT specialist. Kalem was not ill, did not have a cold, sore throat or anything but they kept us in hospital for four days for intravenous antibiotics. He also had an MRI scan done.
Nothing at all was mentioned to me that this could be something serious. I was then told that they were referring us to a more experienced hospital which happened to be Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH).