British mother uses Google to diagnose child’s tumour

At Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. Photo: AP

Making Internet a diagnostic tool, a British mother is said to have used search engine Google to detect her daughter’s brain tumour after doubting doctors held the child was simply “attention-seeking”.

Twenty-five-year-old Carly Hornbuckle was certain her little girl Bella was seriously ill when she kept being sick in the mornings and lost weight. But doctors told her the four-year old was probably playing up because she was “unsettled” after the arrival of baby sister Imogen.

Annoyed by that diagnosis, the determined mother typed the youngster’s symptoms into Google and discovered they all pointed to a brain tumour — which eventually prompted the doctors to take a closer look and a scan revealed a tumour the size of a golf ball, the

Daily Express reported.

Mother of two, Ms. Hornbuckle from Markfield, Leicester, was quoted as saying, “I knew there was something seriously wrong. You know your own children.”

So, she turned to the Internet and convinced doctors at Leicester Royal Infirmary to examine her daughter but they said she did not have the correct symptoms. “Then we saw a different doctor. I told him of my concerns and that something needed to be done.”

After a series of tests, doctors carried out a scan to detect the tumour and subsequently Bella underwent an eight-hour surgery at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, and it was followed by radiotherapy to ensure that the cancer is completely gone.

“The surgery was a success but the radiotherapy has affected Bella’s spine and she will never grow to more than 4ft. It could also lead to some learning difficulty, hearing loss and kidney damage,” Ms. Hornbuckle said.