A mother was horrified after discovering her infant daughter's bacterial infection turned out to be aggressive cancer.
Doctors were unsure of the two-year-old's symptoms, which they thought to be an infection. However, it was discovered that she had acute myeloid leukaemia on her third birthday, The Mirror reports.
Morgan Berry, 22, from Rochdale, took her daughter Lillianna Loasby to their doctor after her child seemed to have developed a bacterial infection. Doctors asked to keep Lillianna in for a couple of days to assess her heart rate.
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Later that evening, Lillianna was brought to the hospital, where her mum noticed she was bleeding from the nose.
Doctors believed it was just a bacterial infection, however, Morgan felt something wasn’t quite right and went to a different hospital.
There, the little girl was treated for sepsis and was then put into a coma to assist in fighting the infection.
"They didn’t know where the infection was coming from," Morgan told the Manchester Evening News. "They said she was a head-scratcher; they didn’t understand why she was so poorly.
"They told me she wasn’t well and I need to be strong. I was a mess by this point. I was crying thinking, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen?’."
Her daughter was moved to another hospital as doctors tried to find out what was wrong.
They were at the oncology unit at Manchester Children’s Hospital when Lilliana received an acute myeloid leukaemia diagnosis, which is an aggressive cancer of the monocyte or granulocyte cells.
The consultant said: "I’m just going to say one word. Leukaemia."
Morgan said she was "shocked and heartbroken" as tears flooded down her cheeks.
"We got the results back and were told we had to wait for consultants to come. We were waiting around and it was the longest 20 minutes of my life.
"I knew there was something wrong. I knew what she was like when she had a viral or bacterial infection and I knew it wasn’t normal. I have anxiety anyway so I started to question myself because I’d been told she had a bacterial infection twice, but deep down I knew there was something wrong with her."
Lillianna was brought to a cancer ward for a 10-day chemotherapy treatment on February 1.
"She’s still fighting the infection and to this day we don’t know where it’s come from," Morgan added. "She’s now got to rest for a couple of weeks so they can assess her and see whether it’s gone away."
A GoFundMe appeal has been set up to assist the mum and her daughter through the heartbreaking medical trips.
"This is understandably a heartbreaking and tough time for Morgan and her family, any donation is more than appreciated," it details.
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