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A four-year-old boy passed away from cancer after doctors repeatedly 'dismissed' his mum's efforts to have him diagnosed.
Rayhan Majid was diagnosed with an aggressive grade three medulloblastoma tumour towards the end of 2017, after his mum noticed that he'd started to wake up in the night suffering with headaches.
His mum Nadia, from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, said her son was previously a 'healthy and active boy who played football and did Taekwondo and swimming'.
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She insisted he was 'never sick' until October 2017, when he woke up crying and 'wasn't quite aware of himself'.
“He was clutching his head and saying that it was hot, but I couldn't make eye contact or get through to him," Nadia recalled.
The headaches became a regular occurrence, and Rayhan started to be sick in the morning, though not 'like normal sickness'.
"He would be retching and all that came out was bile," Nadia said. “That’s when my alarm bells started ringing.”
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Nadia and Rayhan's dad, Sarfraz, took their son to the doctors, but she claimed they 'were not very helpful'.
She remembered how the doctors would 'tickle and play with him, and he would laugh and giggle' and pass the neurological tests with 'flying colours'.
As a result, doctors claimed Rayhan was 'absolutely fine', but the mum knew he 'kept getting sick and his headaches were also increasing'.
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“Over the course of six weeks, we took him to see four different GPs on six separate occasions. When Rayhan watched TV, he kept saying he couldn’t hear it and he turned it up really loud," Nadia said.
“We also noticed when he was walking through doorways in the house, he wasn't negotiating the door frames very well and he would wobble into them.
"We were convinced something was wrong with him but didn’t want to keep going back to the GPs who were dismissing us."
Eventually, the parents took Rayhan to the Accident and Emergency department at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. There, he underwent an MRI scan which revealed a 3cm x 4cm mass in his brain.
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Rayhan underwent surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible and was told he would need six weeks of radiotherapy and four months of chemotherapy, but before the treatment even started another MRI scan revealed the cancer had spread.
Rayhan developed cerebellar mutism and couldn't speak or walk after his operation. He completed the radiotherapy and his first round of chemotherapy, but just four months after his diagnosis he passed away on 7 April, 2018.
Now, Nadia is taking on a 10,000 steps a day challenge to raise money for Brain Tumour Research, with the aim of raising £4,000 for the charity which she hopes will 'bring about better outcomes for brain tumour patients so that families aren’t devastated' like hers.
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“Thanks to everyone who has donated so far to bring our total already to more than £3,000," she said.
To donate to the cause, visit https://www.justgiving.com/team/WalkForRayhan and find the team member you wish to sponsor.
Emily Brown