A six-year-old boy is battling cancer after a bungling doctor dismissed his symptoms as an "ear infection" and possible “autism”.<br /><br />Sebastian Nunney was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, months after complaining of ear ache and his parents noticing his weight had plummeted.<br /><br />Mum Lindsay was initially told he had probably developed an ear infection when she took him to a GP when he was three years old.<br /><br />The family have since complained about the doctor and she was ordered to undergo further training following an investigation by the General Medical Council.<br /><br />Lindsay, 41, who fell pregnant with Sebastian after undergoing IVF, said: “I was with Sebastian, he was clearly in pain and didn’t want to be examined.<br /><br />“It was at the peak of Covid so the GP had full PPE on and I got the impression she wanted us out of there as quickly as possible.<br /><br />“At the time, doctors did not want to do face-to-face consultations but we really pushed for it because Sebastian had lost a lot of weight.<br /><br />"I even showed her photographs of Sebastian just a few weeks earlier to try and show her how much weight he had lost.<br /><br />“The doctor actually said it could be an ear infection because there was some inflammation in the ear.<br /><br />“She read in the notes there had been a referral to see a paediatrician because <br />Sebastian could be on the [autism] spectrum and she said ‘oh yes I see there might be some behavioural problems’."<br /><br />Weeks later in July 2020 his parents took him to hospital after he became increasingly weak and tests showed his oxygen levels were dangerously low.<br /><br />He had an X-ray which showed a large mass in his chest and further tests revealed he had neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that mostly affects babies and children.<br /><br />He was rushed to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham and placed on a ventilator and underwent a tracheostomy so a tube could be inserted into his windpipe.<br /><br />Dad Gregg, 43, an English teacher, said: “At the very beginning he was very sick. <br /><br />“One Friday we were told by the nurses that we were allowed to be together at his bedside - even though Covid restrictions said we couldn’t - ‘to make things more manageable’, but we were told afterwards it’s because they didn’t expect him to make it through the weekend.”<br /><br />They took turns on the bedside vigil where a heavily sedated Sebastian was started on a gruelling 80-day chemotherapy programme.<br /><br />Gregg said: “He looked like Doctor Octopus with all these tubes and wires. Nobody thought he was coming out of PICU. <br /><br />“They took us to the room of doom again and said, ‘he’s never coming out’. We were just numb at that moment.”<br /><br />Despite the odds being stacked against Sebastian, the brave youngster battled back and his tumour shrunk so much that doctors hailed it a “miracle”.<br /><br />But earlier this year, doctors discovered a cancerous growth in his leg and blood tests revealed the disease may have returned.<br /><br />Gregg said: “At the end of May Sebastian was still suffering – he was sore and tired – very upset and falling asleep at school, refusing to eat. <br /><br />“It felt very much like his symptoms when he was first diagnosed. <br /><br />“We were reassured that this was just his response to the radiotherapy, that he was just fed up after three years of treatment, and to just let him rest. <br /><br />“He was in so much pain he just wanted to sleep and cry all the time. <br /><br />“An MRI scan on June 20 showed abnormal tumours in his pelvis, the base of his skull and the soft tissue around his eyes.<br /><br />“At the point we got the results, we were basically told that there isn’t much hope now and we will try and find something to manage his pain. <br /><br />“Our consultant said we’re running out of options in terms of quality of life over treatment.”<br /><br />While undergoing treatment on the NHS, the family, from Kettering, Northants., have launched an appeal to raise £200,000 to send Sebastian abroad for potentially life-saving therapy.<br /><br />One of the therapies the couple are looking into is CAR-T cell therapy which is available in Italy and America. <br /><br />It works by collecting a patient’s white blood cells, editing them in a lab to seek and destroy tumour cells, then injecting them back into the body.<br /><br />To donate to Sebastian’s GoFundMe visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/teamseb.
