'Doctors told me my little girl had a sickness bug - then she got a nightmare diagnosis'
'Doctors told me my little girl had a sickness bug - then she got a nightmare diagnosis'
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A mother has shared her daughter's ordeal after she was diagnosed with leukaemia after doctors wrongly suspected she had a sickness bug. Sofia Coelho Flatt, 41, from Stotfold, Bedfordshire, says her daughter Amelie Coelho Flatt, 12, has been struggling with her health since she was a toddler. Amelie has since fought off leukemia four times. The schoolgirl most recently underwent a life-saving stem cell transplant and had a bone marrow transplant in April 2024.
Now, Amelie and her mother Sofia Coelho Flatt, 41, are encouraging people to sign up to the stem cell register after a stranger "selflessly gave his cells" to save her life. Reflecting back to when Amelie first dropped ill, Sofia said her condition was initially brushed off by doctors and said she witnessed her "fading away".
The terrifying health battle first started when Amelie was just three. In July 2015, she became “very sick, very quickly”, but doctors thought she could have a bug or a urine infection. Speaking about how her daughter's condition quickly deteriorated, Sofia, who is also a mum to Aiden, nine, said: “She was transferred to intensive care at Great Ormond Street. She was there on Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday was when she was diagnosed with leukaemia.".
Aiden was just four months old at the time, while Amelie had only recently turned three. “It all feels like a blur now,” Sofia said. “No one wants to hear your child has cancer, but equally she was literally fading away in front of us, so there was some relief that actually when they finally diagnosed her, they were going to fix her.”.
