Little Calderdale boy's cancer spotted thanks to mum's instinct over one innocuous symptom

Five-year-old Herbert Holmes, from Mytholmroyd, was away on holiday with his mum Abbie, dad Harry and three-year-old brother Ted when Abbie noticed Herbert was snoring particularly loudly.

When she looked in his mouth, she noticed one very large tonsil.

Herbert seemed otherwise well and healthy but it was this innocuous symptom that was to lead to a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

"It is an aggressive cancer and we’re really lucky to have found it so early,” said Abbie, whose husband runs Fresh Farm Deliveries in Mytholmroyd.

"I dread to think how it would have spread.”

Initially, doctors thought Herbert had a bad case of tonsilitis and prescribed antibiotics.

But Abbie could not shake the niggle that her little boy was not in any pain, which she would have expected with tonsilitis.

When the medicine made no difference to the swollen tonsil, she went back to her GP and was referred to the ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialists at Calderdale Royal Hospital.

While waiting for that appointment, Abbie noticed Herbert’s voice was changing. He was seen by two GPs who thought he had quinsy – a complication of tonsilitis – and urged Abbie to take him to A&E.

But again, Abbie was bothered by the fact that she would have expected that condition to be sore for Herbert.

“We were seen by seven different medical professionals there and nobody knew what it was,” she said.

"At that point, I knew whatever it was wasn’t common.”

Eventually, Herbert was seen in A&E by an ENT consultant who booked Herbert in for a tonsillectomy. But when the little boy went in for that operation, the surgeon could not remove the tonsil because it was so big.

He came out of the operating room and told Herbert’s parents that he suspected blood cancer.

It was a relief to finally know what they were dealing with, said Abbie, and that it was treatable with a high success rate.

Herbert was quickly given two emergency rounds of chemotherapy, which shrunk the tonsil.

Now he is in the middle of four more rounds of chemotherapy which doctors are hopeful will leave Herbert cancer-free.

Two weeks of necessary initial sedation after his diagnosis has left Herbert needing to learn to walk, talk and eat again but Abbie says he is doing very well.

"He’s bounced back really quickly,” she said.

She added a plea for other parents to follow their gut when it comes to their children’s health.

"Trust your instincts if you think someone’s not quite right,” she said.

"Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is very rare. It’s the kind of thing doctors aren’t going to see every week or even every year.

“But it does happen so if something doesn’t quite add up or feel right, you can ask for a second opinion.”

Abbie added her thanks to charity Candlelighters, which supports families affected by childhood cancer.

To donate to the charity, visit https://www.candlelighters.org.uk/