One mum is urging parents to trust their gut instincts, particularly about their children’s health, after she trusted others over her son’s initial diagnosis. Caroline Chung's son Liam Jones first started showing symptoms of fatigue and dry cough, which is in line with the symptoms of whooping cough. The 39-year-old mum was convinced this was the ailment her son was suffering from, claiming that the “signs and people were saying to me that it would just be the 100-day cough”.
However, she had an “instinct” that it could be something more “sinister” and looking back now, Caroline admitted to SWNS: "I suppose it was denial, I didn't want to think the worst." When the schoolboy discovered a lump on his collarbone, coupled with his existing symptoms, the mum-of-two took him to the doctors for an ultrasound and x-ray, where his stage two Hodgkin's Lymphoma was diagnosed and the pair were rushed via ambulance to Alder Hay Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. While the news may seem devastating on a surface level, the diagnosis has been a relief for Caroline.
The single mum shared: “It was stage two so it's treatable and that was kind of a relief. To hear those words that it was curable and that it wasn't terminal was just music to my ears. I knew it would be a journey and that it wouldn't be nice, but I knew he was going to survive.
That was the best thing I could have heard." Liam is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment and may require radiotherapy in the future, depending on how his body reacts. The pair, and Liam’s younger sister Olivia, have moved from their Cheshire home to stay with Caroline’s best friend, Chelcee Grimes, closer to the hospital for Liam’s treatment.
The mum proudly gushed about the teen as he’s courageously “accepted that this is his story” and despite a few tears after his initial diagnosis she says “he's not cried and he's barely complained”. Unfortunately, the hair and beauty salon owner is also facing a potential financial situation as she’s had to stop working and is relying on a to support her family. As a single, self-employed mum this move was a “frightening” choice but had to make the safest decision for her son.
She explained: “I have to use physical contact for work, so when his immune system starts deteriorating I won't be able to touch clients and then go home. You never think in a million years that this will happen to you and you don't prepare for it.".
