A one-year-old girl was diagnosed with cancer after doctors dismissed her symptoms as constipation.
Little Florence Wilde was taken to her GP after her stomach began to swell up and she became repeatedly run down and tired.
But parents Anna Chattaway and Dom Wilde, both 32, were told it was just constipation and prescribed laxatives, which left the tot crying in pain.
When her belly continued to balloon, Anna took Florence back to the GP only to be assured it was constipation again.
Anna says at one point a doctor even told her, “Let’s address the elephant in the room, we don’t think it’s cancer.”
Florence was unable to sleep on her own due to being in agony and needed mom Anna to cradle her upright at night to get some rest.
It was only when the family pushed for a blood test that she was finally diagnosed with neuroblastoma in November 2024.
Florence, now two, has since undergone a grueling operation to remove the 30-centimeter tumor and undergone chemotherapy.
The tumor weighed two kilograms, while Florence weighed just 13 kilograms, making up nearly 15 percent of her body weight.
Anna, a clinical psychologist from Stourbridge, West Mids., said, “She was diagnosed a month after her first birthday.
“There was a period of six weeks beforehand where she was poorly with one thing or another.
“She picked up infections, she had hand foot and mouth, she had antibiotics but remained off for a while.
“She started to get a swollen tummy and for three weeks we were back and forth to the local GP.
“We were told she was constipated at the GP — for three weeks I had to force-feed her laxatives which was horrendous.
“When her stomach hadn’t gone down, they gave her more laxatives, but it was getting bigger.
“She wasn’t right and the laxatives weren’t helping so we had to keep pushing the doctors.
“They struggled to examine her. On one occasion a GP said she’s fine and: ‘Let’s address the elephant in the room, we don’t think it’s cancer.’
“We went to the GP again for the final time, and my mom pushed for a blood test.
“Her bloods were heightened and they referred us to the PAU immediately.
“We had another doctor who felt her stomach. As soon as he felt her tummy he said he didn’t think it was poo, there were lumps and bumps.”
Anna says Florence was reassured her symptoms were constipation on at least six occasions in the three weeks before her diagnosis.
She added, “When the tumor was discovered it was 30 centimeters, which was heartbreaking. She’s only small so that took up quite a lot of her.”
Florence underwent surgery at Birmingham Children’s Hospital on November 26, 2024, and started emergency chemotherapy the next day.
Anna added, “She had three months of induction chemotherapy to try and shrink the tumor.
“They thought the disease was in one place, in her stomach, they assumed it was localized.
“It wasn’t until she had further scans in January 2025, that they realized she had metastatic, with the disease in her spine.
“We look back now, how did we think she was constipated because her stomach was massive?
“It grew rapidly in a few weeks, that’s why we have so much anger because if someone would have seen her the first time we went to the GP we could’ve caught this sooner.”
She had up to 95 percent of the tumor removed in March 2025, before beginning her first rounds of high-dose chemo just three weeks later.
Florence began five cycles of immunotherapy in October 2025 before her parents were eventually told the tumor had stopped progressing in April this year.
Anna added, “All throughout we were told she was doing great. Every admission she was full of life throughout it, she was just incredible.
“We’ve met families along the way who have been pushed back from GP’s and doctors more than what Florence’s has.
“For us, I do think if she was diagnosed sooner it might have not been that large. We sat in that headspace for many months and it was horrifying. There was a lot of anger there.”
The family is now fundraising over $136,00 to pay for anti-relapse treatment no longer offered by the NHS.
Anna said, “Florence has finished the gold standard NHS treatment, after that you can either watch and wait to see if the cancer comes back, or other families chose to do a relapse prevention treatment, but they aren’t NHS protocol.
“We decided we wanted her to have a treatment called DFMO. It came to the UK in 2024 and then it was withdrawn in April, a week before she became eligible to start.
“We’ve decided to now raise the money to fund it ourselves as it costs $136,362.
“She’s been doing incredibly, she’s such a happy little girl. Life is good at home.”
Neuroblastoma is a rare type of cancer that develops from immature nerve cells in children up to five.
For high-risk cases, the survival rate can be up to 50 percent for some children, making early diagnosis essential.
