Boy, 3, winning fight for life after contracting testicular cancer
Published: August 27, 2005
A three-year-old boy is winning his battle for life after becoming one of the youngest in Britain to be diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Kirk Boyd, of Ashington, Northumberland, is in remission after having chemotherapy.
Testicular cancer is extremely rare in the young, with only five in every million boys under the age of five being diagnosed.
Kirk’s parents, Alistair and Amanda, first noticed swelling 10 months ago when he was two.
They initially thought he had hurt himself while playing, but took him to their GP as a precaution. The doctor immediately referred him to the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, where he had emergency surgery.
“The consultant kept asking us if we had any questions,” said Mrs Boyd, 42, a hairdresser. “But the only thing we wanted to know was whether our little boy was going to survive, and that was the only thing she couldn’t tell us.”
Kirk started chemotherapy treatment, but suffered a severe reaction and was rushed to St James’s Hospital, Leeds, when his liver started to fail.
His mother vividly remembers the turning point in his condition. “One day Ali looked out of the window at St James’s and saw a rainbow a long way down the valley.
“It started to get closer and closer until it was right outside Kirk’s window. Even the doctors were watching it. I knew then Kirk was going to be OK. That afternoon, his liver started to improve.”
Kirk, who attends Coulson Park Nursery, was transferred to Newcastle General Hospital last Christmas before going back to the Royal Victoria.
His family enjoyed a delayed Christmas celebration when he was discharged in January.
Kirk, who has been told only that he has been “very poorly”, still has to return to hospital for body scans.
His mother said: “The doctors say that if he gets to three years without any sign of the cancer returning it’s unlikely it ever will. If he gets to five years they will give us the all-clear.
“He’ll have to have fertility tests when he’s older, although doctors think everything should be fine.”
Mr Boyd, 41, a cleaner, said: “You never think for a moment that your two-year-old might have testicular cancer.
“If we hadn’t taken him to his doctor we might never have known and his cancer could have been spreading.
“I would just urge other families to go to their GP if they think something might be wrong.”
A spokesman for Cancer Research UK said: ‘Testicular cancer in young boys is extremely rare.”
The cancer responds well to treatment, with a survival rate of nine out of 10. It is the most common cancer in males aged from 15 to 44.
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