“Something didn’t sit right with me, but I never imagined it could be cancer.” Katie Cullen, from Sydney, Australia, said that after an urgent care clinic sent her family home with a diagnosis of constipation. Hours later, hospital scans found an 11cm tumour on the kidney of her four-year-old daughter, Ayla.
The family’s account, carried by The Mirror and Need To Know, shows how easily the early signs of childhood cancer can pass for ordinary illness.
A year of small symptoms
The trouble crept in through 2025. Ayla complained now and then of tummy aches, struggled with constipation, broke out in hives and often seemed tired. At pre-school, staff saw her squabbling with other children, unusual for a girl her mother calls a “social butterfly”.
“Towards the end of 2025, we started to notice her personality change, and looking back, I believe the tumour was making her increasingly uncomfortable,” Katie said. Ayla also slept later in the mornings, lost interest in play, and had red skin under her eyes.
The family kept looking for answers. They saw doctors and specialists several times, and Ayla had two blood tests in 2025, both completely normal. Early in 2025 she had a stubborn urinary tract infection, and an abdominal ultrasound showed nothing unusual. “Everything continued to come back reassuring,” Katie said.
The lump
That changed in January 2026. One evening at bedtime, Katie, 30, and her husband David, 31, felt a large lump in Ayla’s abdomen. The urgent care clinic that night thought it was probably constipation. Katie made a GP appointment for the next morning, and the family was sent directly to the emergency department.
The scans showed a Wilms tumour, a form of kidney cancer. “One moment I thought I was taking my little girl to hospital for constipation, and the next I was being told she had a tumour the size of a grapefruit,” Katie said.
Treatment so far
Chemotherapy began almost at once. Four rounds shrank the tumour by about 70%. Surgeons then removed the kidney along with the tumour, and found it had burst before the operation and spread locally to the bowel, pancreas and diaphragm. That raised the disease to stage three and called for heavier treatment.
Ayla has since finished 10 days of radiation to the whole abdomen, plus six more days aimed at the tumour bed. She is now on a 27-week chemotherapy course using vincristine and actinomycin D. Along the way the list of what she has gone through includes a feeding tube and a central line, transfusions of blood and platelets, and repeated admissions when infections or low counts hit. Chemotherapy has also left her with numbness in her hands and feet on bad days.
“We remain hopeful,” Katie said. She hopes that sharing Ayla’s story shows parents how vague the symptoms of childhood cancer can be, and that a second opinion is worth seeking when something feels wrong. Any parent worried about a child’s symptoms should talk to their doctor.
Sources
- Girl, 4, diagnosed with Wilms tumour after mum noticed changes in her behaviour – The Mirror
- 'My little girl's moodiness and pre-school arguments were sign of terrifying diagnosis' – Need To Know
