Boy needed two brain surgeries after ‘pins and needles’ turned out to be tumour

A brave young boy was told he had to have brain surgery after going to the doctors with pins and needles.

Freddie Parsons, now 16, and his family were left puzzled when he started to wake up with pins and needles which eventually led to terrifying seizures at night.

His parents, Vikki, 45, and Martin, 56, said their son started to get the tingling sensations from the age of seven but said they didn't think anything of it until they realised he was having seizures in his sleep.

After their search for answers fell flat, the pair were told they needed to record a seizure so their doctors near their home in Giggleswick, North Yorkshire could investigate his condition further, reports Liverpool Echo.

That's when Freddie's mum and dad managed to record him having a seizure on a night when his older sister Abi had been sharing a bed with him.

Recalling Freddie's first diagnosis nine years ago, Vikki said: "We had been trying to get help at our local hospital because he had been having seizures in his sleep at night, and we couldn't get any answers.

"Luckily I we went to go see one of our local GPs who specialises in epilepsy and he had lectured with Dr Appleton who was at Alder Hey.

"He said if we were willing to travel we could go get a second opinion at Alder Hey. We said yes and we never looked back.

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"They decided it wasn't just night time epilepsy and gave him an MRI scan. That's when they found that there was a tumour. That was in March 2012.

"He had a biopsy in July, came home for a couple of days and ended up back in for an emergency stay because he was constantly fitting. They chased up the biopsy results and it turned out to be a benign tumour.

"They decided at that point that they were going to operate to try and remove most of it but there was still a bit near his brain stem that was too dangerous to get to.

"It was very near his motor cortex so they were more concerned about whether it would affect his mobility so that was a big thing to deal with because he was an extremely active and sporty seven-year-old.

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"It went very well when he was seven, he bounced back straight away and was back at school after three weeks in a disability buggy.

"We thought that was it because they thought it didn't have a blood supply so it wouldn't grow and they signed us off after a few years."

But at the age of 14, Freddie started to get tingling feelings down the right side of his hand and was referred back to the hospital.

"That's when they scanned him again and found that the tumour had decided to grow back which is extremely rare," said Vikki.

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"That was huge. We really thought we were home and dry. He was back in pretty quickly.

"A couple weeks after they diagnosed him they took him back in and he had a nine hour surgery to remove as much as they could.

"We continue now to have yearly MRI scans just to make sure it doesn't grow back but we do have that possibility of that being a reoccurring thing which is quite difficult for him to deal with.

"It's been quite challenging at times but he always amazes us."

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