You're Killing My Son C4

[difficultpickle]

Watching as I remember this news story. Rather surprised that both parents allowed a film crew to follow their son's progress and airing their views so publicly. I'm not sure I understand what they hope to gain from doing this.

Oh expat. I'm so sorry, this silly woman and her nonsense must be so painful for you.

They usually PET scan if there is some debate over whether it is scar tissue if MRI isn't clear enough. They don't go opening up peoples' skulls again without really good reason.

ok, what I heard was they did have a look (Do more surgery) and that's when they discovered it wasn't a regrowth of the tumor but maybe I mis-heard.

Chub, I didn't find it painful at all, nor did a fellow bereaved father we know who saw it, too. Neither one of us could understand how anyone could be so deluded and stupid, tbh, when it comes to your child's life.

I mean, all that spraff about his respiratory system being affected when he had an appendectomy. WTF? How thick can you get?! Yes, it is sometimes temporarily affected by the GAs, which are very safe, but well, what is the alternative to not resecting an inflamed appendix? DUH!

My fillings can my child brain cancer. Seriously? How deluded can you get?

Cancer is stochastic. It has been around as long as we have. It's even in other animals. And in the vast majority of paeds, we have no idea why it occurs (some forms are inherited or develop due to various genetic conditions).

what expat said.

and yes, if you delay or deny treatment to a child who will die without that treatment then you as the person denying it are responsible for that child's death.

If death can be avoided and you prevent that from happening then you have as good as killed your child.

So yes, she was killing her child. I would go so far as to say that these nutcases with these ideas who play god with their children's lives in the name of "alternative" therapies should be criminally prosecuted for manslaughter if the child dies as a result.

The secondary treatments, chemo and radiotherapy, are to take out whatever cancer is undetectable via all the means we have.

He has a reasonably good chance of cure. It remains to be seen. And yes, the treatments can cause secondary issues and even secondary cancers, including leukaemia, especially when applied to the base of the brain as his was.

But the only alternative is certain death. It's a real, pardon the pun, no brainer.

I felt immense guilt when my daughter fell ill and died after her stem cell transplant, but knew it was irrational because without trying that, well, she would have a zero percent chance rather than a 19% one. I could not face having to tell her the leukaemia was back and there was nothing anyone could do because I was stupid and selfish.

DF he may well have shown no evidence of disease but this does not mean that there are no seedlings which could re grow either at the original site or elsewhere.

My son had medullablastoma brain tumour - which I think is exactly what this little boy had. It is HIGHLY aggresive and fast growing.

My DS had a 'full' tumour resection and maximum dose cranial spinal radiation.

He did have some side effects but he seemed really well in himself - although sadly after 2 years he relapsed and dieda further 2 years later after receiving lots of various chemotherapies.

This is a really nasty brain cancer and you need to throw these horrible treatments at them to get your best chance of curing or extending their lives.

I couldn't help but feel that the mother was completely deluded and could have done no proper research at all as she would have seen how even with gold standard treatments these illnesses have absolutely NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER OF A SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME WITHOUT THESE TREATMENTS.

I don't regret for one minute that my DS had all the treatments that they did as they gave him the hope of a cure and a few years extra of good quality life.

I sincerely hope that this little boy gets a cure.

Expat I am sorry to hear of your journey with childhood cancer and the loss of your daughter too.

curious, I am sorry for your loss.

Yes, Neon has medullablastoma.

I, too, was stunned at how ignorant she remained after supposedly having done all this research.

FFS, a quick Google will tell you all you need to know! In fact, the news was so bad after reading searches on DD1's cancer I stopped very shortly because, well, the writing was on the wall there. Not treating just never entered our minds. Duh.

The 'my fillings gave him cancer' statement was the stupidest I've heard for some time. After that there was no point in expecting any sense from her.

snazzy I was thinking the same. I can only conclude that she is completely and utterly deluded in her way of thinking. To risk the life of her child for such delusion is staggering. I wonder where her way of thinking stems from. All doctors are corrupt, fillings cause cancer, oxygen chambers will beat cancer cells - all utter crap. Poor Neon.

She appeared a bit unstable.

If she had been pushing for proton therapy I would have understood, but she seemed to be all over the place and only touched on that by accident.

I definitely agree that the quacks should be prosecuted. They were outrageous vultures

I have known a good number of parents of children with autism follow exactly these "interventions", all of them including hyperbaric (sp?) oxygen therapy. With all the sane views about evil doctors and the medical establishment. With the same theories about the mother's fillings causing ASD and one even removed her child from a top special school that is extremely hard to get into because they had Wi-fi! It really does verge on abuse IMO but they continue for years because the bad consequences for the child are not so obvious. Sorry to hijack, I know it doesn't compare to a life threatening illness or to the experiences of some of our dear MNers but this sort of stuff is going on all the time sadly.

I thought she was a fruitloop from watching this, but after reading the link pp posted about the proton radiation I think they chose to show her in the loopy light. God forbid if anyone in my family got cancer, but if they did id want the proton radiation too. Its the same power as normal radiation treatment but its directed straight at the tumour so the rest of the body isnt affected like it is with the treatments we get offered currently.

The radiotherapy I had did not affect the rest of my body, only the targeted area. People kept saying it was good I hadn't lost my hair and I had to tell them that I had but not on my head!

Lora, have you read the entire thread? Proton beam therapy is not shown as effective as treatment of medullablastoma and is therefore not an option for those afflicted, here on in the US. The NHS can and does fund proton beam therapy for those for whom it is a viable treatment.

This was not the tack the mother was taking. But completely unproven treatments, akin to my trying to take my daughter with AML to New Zealand to have her blood washed (?) and give her injections of high-dose Vit C rather than the chemo proven to remit children like her so they can have a stem cell transplant.

There are particular consultants who should not be in practice, who are, for lack of a better phrase, unconvicted expeditors of childrens' deaths. Ones whom, if it were my child, I would beyond certainty and with full consent of my spouse, get on an aeroplane.

But this was not the case here.

This was someone refusing what is worldwide protocol for treatment of a particular cancer in favour of hyperbaric chambers and vitamins.

Proton beam therapy is not shown as effective in trials for certain forms of cancer and therefore not used or available.

I was a bit confused at this. Part of me was horrified at her and part of me was maybe she was a bit fragile mentally and it pushed her over the edge, that she couldn't cope and retreated into lalaland.
However my anger is fully justified towards those snake oil peddlars that were feeding off her. That red headed woman and the bloke with the gadgets, using her to make money and putting her DS in mortal danger, they should be locked up IMO.
The mother seemed mentally unstable, she didn't have a course of action to present as an alternative (like the SIL said) but just seemed to ramble on incoherently and block treatment.
Hopefully Neon is now better and they can mend bridges as a family.

Is it wrong that she question a 'worldwide protocol' when an adult would be able to refuse treatment but a child can't?

No one could force me to vaccinate my child for example, so why should a court enforce the wishes of doctors over that of a parent? I wonder what would have been the leal position had both parents been in agreement about not having the further treatment.

an adult can make a decision for themselves and face the consequences. If she had refused treatment for him, he'd be dead, it's hardly the same as a vaccination.

So if to parents agree that they would not ent thir child to have chemotherapy, that will always be over-ruled by a court?

*two

Are you saying it is OK to let a child face certain death? As that is the case here.

I don't believe you could ever say for sure that it's certain death. Maybe you know more about the case than I. My friend's mother died after lengthy treatment for throat cancer, when her father subsequently also got diagnosed with the same thing he refused the treatment his wife had. He was allowed to do so even though it meant certain death. I get that he was an adult with full understanding of the consequences but his decision was based upon an understanding of the possible consequences of the treatment having seen his wife's demise. Obviously there must be some parents who know the effects of some treatments a d who would rather their child not go through it. I don't include 'for religious reasons' in that.

Was just interested in what the legal situation would be. Found this