A MUM has revealed the heart-shattering moment her young daughter’s seemingly innocent leg pain turned out to be a sign of cancer, with a tumour found in her stomach.
Apple Smith was just three-years-old when she was diagnosed with high-risk stage four neuroblastoma – an extremely aggressive cancer that had taken over all of her body.
Apple Smith, who was diagnosed with neurblastoma, with her mum Anthea
Her leg pain turned out to be sign of huge tumour in her stomach
Apple with sister Lulu Smith prior to her diagnosis July 2021.
Apple on her first day of school last month
In July 2021, Apple’s mum and dad, Anthea Smith, 46, and Euriah Smith, 45, took their daughter to A&E after she began suffering leg pain.
Doctors at first thought the pain was caused by inflammation of the hip joint and gave Apple ibuprofen to help.
However, by August 2021, the pain became unbearable to the point where April couldn’t stand, which spurred her parents to take her back to hospital one last time.
After numerous X-rays, her parents received the shocking news that their girl was actually fighting cancer, discovering that the child had a large mass in her abdomen.
“I felt like I had this big black ball of fear in my tummy that was so big, I could barely breathe,” Anthea, who is a senior manager at BT, told NeedToKnow.online.
“My biggest fear was that my daughter was going to die.
“I knew she had a big tumour in her tummy and they said it was rare childhood cancer.
“The tumour was spread around her kidneys, bowels, spine and ovaries.
“I don’t know anyone really that has had cancer, I didn’t understand the terminology and I knew nothing about the cancer that Apple had.
“I asked them the day she was diagnosed how long she had to live and the nurse looked me in the eye and said their aim was to cure her.
“Ever since, we’ve clung on to that.”
When Apple was diagnosed, doctors found that the cancer had already spread across her body.
The little tot had a tumour in her stomach, as well as cancer hotspots in her skull, blood and bones. The disease had spread “as far as it could have possibly gone”.
Apple, who is now five-years-old, had to begin treatment straight away, undergoing numerous rounds of gruelling chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.
Anthea said: “You feel helpless because there is nothing you can do to make her feel better.
“She is in hospital, you are with her, you are holding her hand and she is on the morphine and she is on all the drugs and there is nothing you can do to make her feel better.
“You’re also in a child oncology ward with other very sick children and their parents.
“As must as you want to talk to these parents, you also don’t at the same time because you don’t want to hear it.
“If their child was sicker or terminal, you just don’t want to feel that for your own child, it is a really helpless time.”
However, little Apple defied all odds and, one year on, is now nearing the end of her treatment.
The tumour and cancer hotspots which were in Apple’s blood and body have now completely gone.
The youngster still has some hotspots left in her bones, but with just nine days left on immunotherapy, Anthea hopes that by November her little girl will finally be in remission.
She said: “It was really encouraging how well she responded to the treatment and the doctors are really pleased with her progression. They said it couldn’t have gone any better.
“However you still have that ball of fear depending where you are. If she starts to feel poorly again, the fear is massive and you can barely breathe.
“But when things are going well and she is fit, happy and well in herself, the ball gets smaller and you can deal with it.”
“She is just amazing, just turned five, and she has just started school.
“Her hair is coming back which she is very proud of. She loves wearing uniform and is a confident happy little girl.
“After spending so much time in hospital over the last year we were worried about how she would fit into school but she has just slotted right in.
“She loves her little sister Tallulah, two, and is just a ray of sunshine.”
Anthea believes that her little girl wouldn’t be where she is today without the support of Spread a Smile – a charity which supports seriously ill children in hospitals, hospices and homes across the UK.
During some of Apple’s toughest months, Anthea says the people at the charity were the only ones who could cheer her daughter up.
The youngster would attend Zoom party calls with other poorly children, which helped her feel “less alone”.
Anthea added: “We are extremely thankful for Spread a Smile, they have supported us right from the beginning for over a year.
“There were times where she was really poorly because of her high dose chemotherapy and she was in hospital for weeks.
“She was that poorly she couldn’t even cry, she just lay there, didn’t even watch tv, but one thing she did do was go on her Zoom party calls with the charity.
“She might not have spoken but she smiled, and it was the only thing that did make her smile.”
