Little Daisy Stovell was only 11 days old when
she became one of the youngest cancer patients
in Britain - after a chance diagnosis by doctors.
The 22-month-old was born with breathing
difficulties and, after a series of tests, doctors
were convinced she had an obstruction in her
throat.
She was transferred from Forth Valley Royal
Hospital in Stirlingshire, where she was born, to
Glasgow's Yorkhill Children's Hospital for further
examination.
The newborn was put under general anaesthetic -
her first of 30 so far - and, while she was
sedated, doctors decided to carry out a routine
eye check.
And it was a decision that almost certainly saved
her sight - and possibly her life - after they
discovered she had a rare form of eye cancer
called retinoblastoma.
There are only 40 to 50 cases of the disease in
the UK every year, with many children not
diagnosed until the tumour is too big to save their
sight.
Luckily, Daisy's rapidly growing tumour was
caught when it was just a few millimetres in size.
And at just three-and-a-half weeks old she
received her first round of gruelling
chemotherapy.
Devoted mum Sally, 38, from Stirling, who has
since raised more than £4,000 pounds for Yorkhill
Children's Charity, said:
"When they said she had
an eye tumour, I just thought, 'Oh, my God'.
"It was just so left field because she was
having trouble breathing and now they were
telling me she had an eye tumour.
"All I heard was the word cancer and you
just think, 'is she going to die?' because as
an adult that's your experience of cancer. It
was quite terrifying."
To confirm the diagnosis, Daisy was flown by
private jet 300 miles to Birmingham Children's
Hospital - one of only two specialist
retinoblastoma centres in the UK - when she was
just three weeks old.
She was then flown back to Yorkhill and after
two rounds of chemotherapy, administered in the
neonatal ward, the tumour had shrunk by more
than 50%.
Daisy then endured months of laser treatment to
eradicate the rest of the growth.
She also battled back from the brink after being
struck down with a life-threatening infection.
But against all odds, the tot, who still travels to
Birmingham every 10 weeks for check-ups, has
been cancer free for the last 14 months, although
it will be a lot longer before she officially gets the
all clear.
And last June, Daisy, who also had to be wear a
special plaster cast for six months to correct a
hip problem, was flower girl at her parents'
wedding.
Mrs Stovell, a primary teacher, said: "Since then
she has just come on leaps and bounds. She
really is a wee poppet and is super content, which
is astonishing considering everything she has
been through.
"Just before she started chemo they also
tested her hearing and we were told she
needed hearing aids and then at about five
months we found out she had a clicky hip
and needed to wear a special cast for six
months. We just thought, what else can
they throw at her.
"And because she is a baby, every time they
look in her eyes she needs to have a
general anaesthetic. It's horrible. She must
have had about 30 so far."
Further tests have also revealed that Daisy has
an even rarer chromosonal deletion syndrome,
which caused the muscles in her throat to
become floppy and present as breathing problems
at birth.
As she has grown, this has corrected itself but
the syndrome has left her with weak muscle tone,
and despite being almost two she is still unable
to walk.
The condition is also thought to be linked to the
retinoblastoma gene and Mrs Stovell and husband
Stav, an ex-paratrooper, have been warned that
Daisy could develop more tumours in the future.
Mrs Stovell said: "She gets checked every 10
weeks and so far there has been no re-growth.
But you feel you are never quite out of the woods.
Once she gets to five years old we can start to be
a bit more confident. But she's an absolute joy
and I wouldn't change her for the world.
"And we are just so unbelievably grateful it
was found so early - and all because they
decided to do a routine eye check."
Daisy's case is understood to have been
presented to hospitals across the country, to
show the value of routine eye checks in
newborns.
Mrs Stovell said: "Most children with it only find
out when they are over a year old, when they
have a squint or it shows up in a photograph
from a camera flash. But by then the tumour has
grown so big, a lot of them lose an eye."
Daisy now has to wear an eye patch every
morning to strengthen the muscles in the one
which had the tumour to ensure her sight is not
affected.
"We had to clean the house for her coming
home and we couldn't show her off to
people. For the first few months of her life
the only people she saw were me and my
husband, my mum and dad and my brother
and his girlfriend."
The couple were told she might need six months
of chemotherapy but were relieved when she only
needed two.
Mrs Stovell said: "It shrunk by 50% after one
month and a bit more after two. Then the rest
they got with the laser and she had quite a few
months of that."
When she was six months old, her parents were
dealt the devastating news that the tumour had
seen a slight re-growth. But after continuing with
the treatment it gradually disappeared and she
remains in remission.
Her mum was so grateful for the treatment and
care she received at Yorkhill, she ran the
Edinburgh Marathon for Yokhill Children's Charity
last May to thank them for saving her little girl's
sight.
She is now expecting her second child in June,
and is encouraging others to sign up for the event
this year to help other children like Daisy.
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