Toowoomba girl Millie Barrett faces ultra-rare dual cancer diagnosis

It is every parent’s nightmare – your three-year-old daughter is sick and in pain but no one knows why, all the while you are losing valuable time as a pair of cruel diseases infiltrate her tiny body.

It is every parent’s worst nightmare. Your child is sick, she has an upset tummy and is drinking large amounts of water every day and no one knows why.

Repeated visits to the GP and the hospital emergency room fail to diagnose the problem until a year later when an ultrasound reveals a massive tumour that has encased your baby’s kidney.

This was the heartbreaking scenario that rocked Courtney Clark’s world when her three-year-old daughter Millie Barrett was diagnosed with a neuroblastoma on August 22.

But the tumour was just the start of Millie’s health battle.

Follow-up tests revealed she was also suffering from Langerhans cell histiocytosis, a coexisting second cancer that had infiltrated her pituitary gland, skull, rib and orbital bone and was perilously close to her brain.

Three-year-old Toowoomba girl Millie Barrett is an absolute princess, who loves Barbie and the Frozen movies.

Ms Clark said the combination of the two cancers was incredibly rare, with only two reported cases in children of a similar age.

“I feel an immense amount of guilt,” she said.

“If someone had listened to me sooner or if I went up to the emergency department and refused to leave then this would have been picked up sooner.

“Millie started getting tummy and bone pain, the doctors thought it was a urinary tract infection, I had to push and told the doctors that did not seem right.

“Then we did an ultrasound on August 18, then on Monday, August 21 went back to the GP and were told it was a massive tumour.”

Millie Barrett has a tough fight ahead to beat two cancers, Langerhans cell histiocytosis and neuroblastoma.

On August 22 Millie was admitted to hospital and has since weathered three rounds of general anaesthetic for bone marrow biopsy, lumbar puncture and a tumour biopsy.

She has a craniectomy and central line piped into her jugular vein to deliver what was expected to be several rounds of chemotherapy.

Despite the monumental challenges Ms Clark said Millie was facing them like a trooper.

“Millie blows me away with how well she takes it. She said to me, ‘It’s okay mummy, we can do this’,” Ms Clark said.

“To some degree she is aware of how sick she is.

“When she had to be forcibly held down for a blood test, she did not ask why it was happening, she knows she is sick, but I don’t think she knows how sick.”

The doctors’ plan of attack is to treat the neuroblastoma first, by hitting with chemotherapy but if that does not work, they will remove Millie’s kidney and the tumour that has encased it.

Then they will come to the long fight to beat LCH.

Facing cancer together are (from left) Millie Barrett, Eamon Barrett Courtney Clark and Evelyn Barrett.

To help with the fight, Ms Clark’s family and friends have rallied around her, starting a GoFundMe campaign which has raised about $10,000 in less than a week.

Ms Clark said the money was welcomed because she has had to leave work indefinitely and move to Brisbane to be with Millie while her partner Eamon Barrett stays in Toowoomba with their second daughter Evelyn.

But more importantly, she said the family was buoyed knowing how much love there was in the community for them.

“It is incredible,” Ms Clark said.

“I am not in a place where I am able to talk to people but Eamon and I are blown away.”

Click here to support the GoFundMe campaign.