My 19-year-old was killed by rampant cancer in a year – the first sign was an eerily common problem
A grief-stricken mother has told of doctors’ multiple failings to spot the lethal bone cancer that killed her ‘beautiful, kind and funny’ daughter at just 19.
Jane Kelly, from Gateshead, said she was treated as a ‘neurotic parent’, with her teenagers’ symptoms fobbed off as glandular fever and urine infections over the course of two years.
By the time her daughter Megan was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma – a rare type of cancer that usually begins in the bone – it had spread to her lungs and lymph nodes.
Doctors said there was just a 30 per cent chance she’d live more than five years. She survived just over a year.
The first sign something was wrong struck in September 2017, when Megan was 16.
‘It began with a virus that lasted over three weeks, she could not shake it off,’ said Ms Kelly.
‘This was followed by virus after virus, along with constant urine infections. She missed so much school due to ill health that by Easter 2018, she was asked to leave.’
Doctors failed to find an underlying cause of the infections, instead telling her she was suffering common conditions like glandular fever – despite her chronic lack of energy.
Megan Kelly spent two years in and out of GP surgeries to understand the reason for her chronic symptoms
Megan’s mother had survived blood cancer and found the delayed process of her daughter’s diagnosis similar to her own
Ms Kelly said her ‘gut feeling’ was that ‘something was seriously wrong.’
‘I had fought my own battle with [blood cancer] Hodgkin lymphoma when I was 32,’ she said. ‘It had taken a year before I was correctly diagnosed, and I recognised much of my own experiences in what Megan was going through.
‘But the rational side of me wanted to believe the doctors each time we were told she just had a virus.
‘It was much harder to think that my teenage daughter could have cancer, and it was certainly not something I wanted to hear.’
By 2019, Megan was struck down with illness again – this time with dangerous hypothermia, a potentially life-threatening drop in body temperature.
‘I remember saying to the doctor at the walk-in clinic that something needed to be done, that I feared there was something seriously wrong,’ said Ms Kelly.
‘But she just rolled her eyes and told me that parents could sometimes be neurotic when it came to their children.’
It wasn’t until June that year that an astute GP performed an examination and detected what appeared to be a mass growing on Megan’s kidney.
Despite being told she had less than a year to live, Megan was ‘positive’, telling her mother, ‘I’m ready’
The doctor asked Ms Kelly to come to the surgery immediately, and informed them both that she suspected cancer.
A series of hospital tests subsequently revealed the devastating diagnosis of stage 4 soft cell Ewing sarcoma – which doctors said had probably developed two years prior.
‘Her diagnosis was not a complete shock to me,’ Ms Kelly said. ‘Through the power of Google, I already suspected it.
‘The worst thing for me was knowing that she would have to go through chemo. Having been through it myself years before, I knew how brutal it could be.
Megan ‘listened to her diagnosis, had a cry, then stopped and said “so what are we going to do about it?”.
‘Of course, there were dark days, but by and large, she was very positive. She never felt sorry for herself.’
A ‘brutal’ regime of chemotherapy, on and off for nine months, coupled with a major operation to remove her cancer-stricken left kidney, seemed to keep the disease at bay.
In June 2020, she was told she was in remission.
By the time the disease was spotted, it was at stage four and had spread throughout her body
‘We had always been told that she only really had one chance at treatment, and that if the cancer returned, there was nothing else that could be done,’ Ms Kelly said.
‘For the next couple of months, Megan was very hopeful. Despite the isolation we all faced due to Covid, she was happy. She was still incredibly thin, but her hair started to grow back and she was able to walk again.’
But the success of her treatment was short-lived. In August 2020, signs of a relapse were picked up on a routine scan.
‘It was the worst news,’ Ms Kelly said. ‘Megan’s cancer was back and there was nothing else they could do for her. We were told she had a year to live.
‘Incredibly, Megan did not even break a sweat.
‘Despite promising myself that I would never cry in front of her, I broke down. But she just turned to me and said: You know what, mum, I’m fine. I’ve been thinking about this moment a lot and I am at peace with it. I am ready.’
The teenager was put on a low dose of chemo to keep the cancer at bay, but after a couple of weeks, she became more unwell.
‘The doctor took me aside and told me it was not working and that Megan only had a few days left,’ said Ms Kelly.
On 9 December 2020, Megan passed away at the family home.
Since her death the family have endeavoured to honour her attempts to raise funds for reseach into childrens’ cancers, and have so far collected £26,000.
‘Research into childhood cancer is underfunded compared to adults, because relatively few children are diagnosed with cancer compared to the adult population,’ said Ms Kelly.
‘We need to develop kinder, better treatments for children with cancer to be able to save more lives.
‘My daughter had an incredible life ahead of her. She was articulate, beautiful, kind and funny – and I often wonder where she would be right now. I can only hope that she would be incredibly proud of what we are doing in her name.’
