St Neots girl gets brain tumour diagnosis 12 hours after eye test

A mum said she “fell apart” after finding out her four-year-old daughter had a brain tumour, just 12 hours after an eye test.

Katie, 41, said her daughter Phoebe, now five, started to be sick and was getting severe headaches in February, but was told “it was just migraines” by a GP.

Following an eye test in May, Katie was called by the optician who told her to take her daughter straight to A&E at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Just hours later, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

“I fell apart and just sobbed and sobbed,” said the mum from St Neots, Cambridgeshire. Thankfully, Phoebe’s tumour was not cancerous and she is now under the care of specialists.

Katie said: “I felt like we were probably wasting the hospital’s time because Phoebe was running around playing like normal but, looking back, she was probably the sickest kid there.

“I kept thinking, how am I going to tell her dad and the other children?

“I kept asking if Phoebe would survive but the doctors said they were unable to answer that at that time, which is the worst thing in the world as a parent.”