'One day, my child just stopped eating and drinking - the diagnosis was earth-shattering'

'One day, my child just stopped eating and drinking - the diagnosis was earth-shattering' Teddy Sloman's family thought his symptoms were down to either teething or the hot weather A mother whose child suddenly stopped eating and drinking says the diagnosis doctors gave them was 'scary' and 'earth-shattering'. Teddy Sloman was just three when he started refusing food and drink. He then started being sick and sleeping through the day in June 2025. Having been a perfectly healthy boy until then, this rang alarm bells for parents Sarah and Kramer, who wondered if the warm spell of weather was to blame. His symptoms were dismissed as constipation when he was taken to the GP and a paediatric hospital. Sarah started to massage his stomach to relieve what was thought to be constipation. However, while doing so one day, she noticed a worrying lump and rushed him straight back to hospital, where he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. "During a baby massage I felt a mass in his stomach. They just told me it was a bit of poop that was stuck and to carry on with the massages," Sarah said. "Unbeknownst to me, the mass inside his stomach was actually a very nasty and very aggressive tumour." "Then they gave us the earth-shattering news that Teddy had cancer," she continued. "It was a really scary time for us. It just felt so surreal that those words were being said to me. You don't expect it to be you on the receiving end of those conversations. My work life has now become my personal life." Teddy, from Griffithstown, was immediately transferred to hospital for further scans. The tumour was so large it filled his entire abdomen, pressing on his organs and making it difficult for him to eat or even breathe, and the cancer had spread to his bone marrow. Teddy is beginning to recover, but he is unable to keep food down at the sight of it and relies entirely on tube feeding. The youngster faces a high risk of his cancer returning, and for children who relapse, survival rates are devastatingly low. An American-produced maintenance drug called Difluoromethylornithine, which helps ward off relapse, has just been unexpectedly withdrawn from the NHS. Sarah explored the possibility of accessing the treatment privately, only to be quoted a staggering £250,000. She said: "There are shockingly horrendous figures around the type of cancer that we are dealing with. "To know that there is a type of drug out there that is the best chance we have to beat this very horrendous disease we need to try and get it." The family started a GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of the medication, which has so far raised more than £61,000 – yet there remains a considerable amount still needed. Sarah said: "He is the biggest social butterfly that you will come across. His strength and resilience has been the only thing getting us through. "We now have this massive challenge ahead of us to try and get him the drugs that he needs to get through this. It is so humbling and overwhelming to know that complete strangers are behind us and are helping us in any way that they can." The past year has been gruelling, with both parents living at Noah's Ark Children's Hospital in Cardiff, taking turns so that Teddy is never left alone, while the other cares for their newborn baby Joey. Teddy was placed on a treatment plan involving chemotherapy from July to September, followed by major surgery at Birmingham Children's Hospital in October. He suffered numerous complications during treatment, including a lung infection called pneumocystis pneumonia and mucositis, which causes sores in the throat and gastrointestinal tract. He began immunotherapy on his third birthday in April and was screaming in pain, before subsequently developing eyesight problems – forcing doctors to halt the treatment. Sarah said: "Teddy has hit every complication throughout his treatment and, bless him, despite all of this, he still manages to give us a smile along the way. "The senior hospital staff said it was the worst reaction to immunotherapy they had seen in over 20 years. It has been the most horrendous 12 months of our lives. We have been separated as a family. "Our daily lives are always governed by cancer. It is great to have moments of laughing and playing but we are also reminded by the suitcase by the door that we have to be ready to drop everything and go whenever something goes wrong." What is neuroblastoma? Cancer Research UK says that neuroblastoma is a rare cancer that affects children, mostly under the age of five years old. Around 100 children between the ages of 0 and 14 years are diagnosed with neuroblastoma each year in the UK. Very rarely, it can develop in older children, teenagers and adults. Neuroblastoma is a cancer that starts in a type of nerve cell called a neuroblast. - ‘neuro’ means nerve - ‘blast’ means cells in early development - ‘oma’ means a group of cells, or a tumour The most common symptom of neuroblastoma is a lump in the tummy (abdomen). This could make your child’s tummy swell, causing discomfort or pain. Some children may even get constipation. We don’t know exactly what causes neuroblastoma. In some cases, there is a family history. But these cases are very rare.