While most moms start the morning by giving their little ones some juice, maybe a few vitamins, and a nutritious breakfast, one UK mom has been giving her 7-year-old son chemotherapy drugs each morning, even though he doesn’t have cancer.
Normally, chemotherapy drugs are used to treat cancer patients to destroy cancer cells, however, after 7-year-old Ethan Cavanagh’s eczema got so bad that someone thought his mom Terri was abusing him, she knew she had to find a better solution than the creams and medications that were failing to make a difference.
As a baby, Ethan started developing painful flare-ups, which doctors first thought were because of allergies, but even with changes to his diet, the painful red patches just got worse. Eventually, doctors discovered Ethan was suffering from severe eczema, and Terry tried every emollient, bath wash, shampoo, and steroid yet nothing worked.
At one point, Terry was applying moisturizer on Ethan’s raw, itchy skin 15 times a day, but he would still wake up covered in blood and scabs. After running out of all other treatment plans, doctors suggested that they start him on chemotherapy to stop his overactive immune system from attacking itself. “It was quite a shock when we were first offered chemo. I thought ‘What if his hair falls out?’ as he loves his curly hair, and I knew chemo could cause fertility problems, so that was a big deal to me,” Terri said. “I felt like I was taking his future away but you’ve got to do what’s best for your child.”
Every morning, Ethan drinks 5.5 ml of the chemotherapy drugs before breakfast, and while it can have severe side effects like diarrhea, hair and teeth loss, liver failure, and infertility, Terri is desperate to give her son a normal life. “It’s been heartbreaking to see him in so much pain, despite his treatments. He cries that he doesn’t want to be Ethan anymore,” she said. “But in this position you try anything. I want Ethan to live a normal life.”
Unfortunately, the treatment hasn’t relieved any of his symptoms so far, and if an increased dosage doesn’t help, Terri has been raising money to bring Ethan to a pioneering eczema clinic in France for treatment.
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[Featured image: Terri Cavanagh]
Little Boy Starts Chemotherapy To Treat Severe Eczema is an article from: LifeDaily