Doctors missed his brain tumour, now this 8yo has permanently lost his vision

“This isn’t the first time this has happened. It always lingers in my mind that had something been done earlier, maybe his sight wouldn’t have been lost,” mum Jessica tells Kidspot.

Hamza Ibrahim is just like any other eight-year-old boy. 

Obsessed with soccer and hanging out with friends, you could easily find the Adelaide boy watching Harry Potter or playing a game of basketball after school. 

But things started to change when he began complaining of a niggling headache that wouldn’t go away. 

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Hamza loves playing soccer and watching Harry Potter. Source: Supplied

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“I wasn’t really concerned at the time,” mum-of-six Jessica told Kidspot. 

But when she got a call from the school explaining Hamza had been throwing up, she assumed it was a bout of gastro. 

With no noted nausea or gastro-related symptoms, Jessica became cautious. “It wasn’t until late July I started to connect the headaches with the vomiting,” she said. 

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In early August, she took her son to the GP and explained his symptoms, but he was sent home. “[The doctor] didn’t seem very concerned,” said Jessica.

“We’ll send him off for a blood test and check whether his iron levels are normal,” the doctor informed her, but in the back of Jessica's mind, she knew something was wrong. 

“You kind of trust what they were saying,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe I’m a hypochondriac’, or ‘I’m overreacting’, and I just pushed those feelings down.”

As the weeks passed, Hamza’s health started to deteriorate. His headaches were persistent and lasted all day, even after taking painkillers. “And he was really off-balance,” his mum added. 

With their original GP away on holiday for two weeks, the mother and son visited a second doctor to try and get to the bottom of his ill health, but they were soon “dismissed” once again.

“You need to wait for your regular GP, I can't do anything,” the second doctor told Jessica. While they waited for their GP to return, Hamza was only getting worse. 

“He was hurting himself at school because he was just falling over, tripping into things,” Jessica told Kidspot. 

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Hamza was turned away from the GP several times before he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Source: Supplied

Eight-year-old permanently lost vision from brain tumour

Unbeknownst to the Adelaide mum, Hamza’s eyes were also starting to fail, a symptom she would later discover following his shocking diagnosis. With no answers and a seriously unwell 8yo, Jessica took him to a third GP in the clinic, where they told the family he needed to get tested. 

Within hours, they had a diagnosis. Hamza had developed a pilocytic astrocytoma brain tumour, and it was slowly killing him. 

“It all happened pretty fast,” she said. Two days after his diagnosis, Hamza underwent a nine-hour surgery to remove the tumour from his brain. 

Thankfully, the tumour was benign. However, a constant build-up of fluid in his brain meant he had to undergo another surgery a week later. 

A shunt was permanently inserted into his brain to help release the fluid build-up, sadly causing further vision loss and leaving him in excruciating pain.

While the family thought they were in the clear, he was admitted to hospital again last Friday for emergency surgery, where surgeons drilled two burr holes into his skull to relieve pressure built up in his brain. 

The shunt he had inserted had been working overtime, causing excess fluid to be stored in his skull.

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Hamza's strength and bravery never fails to inspire his mum, Jessica. Source: Supplied

“Life is very different now”

Hamza has since permanently lost his vision, meaning he will never be able to do the things he used to enjoy. 

“He’s a real outdoor kid, he loves playing footy, loves playing with friends,” said Jessica. “But now, he can’t do any of that. It’s pretty hard to digest.” 

The family movie night was a weekly tradition in their house, but since he lost his vision, it isn’t the same. “It's different from being born blind,” she said, compared to “being able to see and then suddenly losing your vision.” 

“It’s such a loss.” 

To make matters worse, he can no longer attend his regular school and instead must go to South Australian School for the Vision Impaired, which is located two hours away. 

“Life is very different now,” the Adelaide mum said. 

Despite the endless suffering Hamza is going through, Jessica said he has been handling everything like a “champion”, never complaining and always trying to seek out the positives.

“I am amazed at his strength and resilience,” she told Kidspot. “He’s never cried, he’s never been fearful.” 

At one point, his father, who lives overseas, told him, “You’re going to be good,” to which Hamza replied, “What do you mean? I’ve never been bad.” 

The resilience he shows is instilled by Jessica, who encourages her family to see the “brighter side of life”, even if the road ahead looks bleak. 

“I think it's a good way to teach your kids to teach them resilience, even if you can't do something, if they're struggling with something, or something bad happens, that you get through it,” she said.

The family has set up a GoFundMe page to support the family as they continue fighting their toughest battle. 

"Hamza is a bright and vibrant little boy, who has been incredibly brave and calm despite everything happening to him," said his aunt, Cathryn. 

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Hamza underwent emergency surgery on Friday. Source: Supplied

“Never discount your gut feelings”

It is fairly common for brain tumours to go undetected in children despite it being one of the most common childhood cancers. 

Roughly 120 Australian children are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year, and Jessica is urging other parents to take notice of the symptoms. 

Signs and symptoms parents should be aware of include headaches, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, seizures and loss of balance. 

Now, Jessica is advocating for doctors to trust a parent’s gut instinct and to undergo additional training and education to be better versed in the symptoms of childhood cancer. 

“This isn’t the first this has happened,’ she told Kidspot. “It always lingers in my mind that had something been done earlier, maybe his sight wouldn’t have been lost.” 

She also urged other parents to take their instincts seriously, as it could save their child’s life. 

“Never discount your gut feelings,” she added. “As a parent, you push it down sometimes … it’s an innate feeling; I don’t know how to explain it, but you know when something is wrong with your child. And doctors need to listen to that.

“I don’t want this to happen to another child. It’s devastating.”

You can follow Hamza's journey here. 

Originally published as Doctors missed his brain tumour, now this 8yo has permanently lost his vision