Doctors told Kimberley her 4-week-old had wind. Then an intern discovered the truth.

Kimberley's son Patrick was four weeks old when she noticed something was… off.

"He grunted a lot. He sweated a lot. He was always hot," the mum-of-two shared with Mamamia, remembering the large size of Patty's stomach.

Concerned, Kimberley reached out to her local GP, who had delivered Patrick by C-Section. He reassured the parents that the four-week-old just had wind.

Watch: Hospital staff sing to Patrick during his treatment. Post continues after video.

"His words were, 'You've just got a big baby. Some babies cry, some babies grunt, and you've just got a grunter,'" she recalls.

Kimberley sought a second opinion from the maternal nurse, who agreed with the GP, telling the mum "that's what babies look like".

As Patrick was her second child, Kimberley knew that babies can have big tummies. After all, her first son Harry was a windy baby. She had no reason not to believe the medical professionals. Until he had one particularly "rough day".

"He hadn't done a poo for a couple of days, so he was really unsettled," Kimberley shared. "I was feeding him in my car at Bunnings and he just couldn't latch. He could not get comfortable, and he couldn't bend his body because his belly was really hard."

Worry mounting, Kimberley headed home, and when her best friend paid a visit, she voiced the mum's same fears.

"She said the words before I even said them: 'His stomach has been hard for a few weeks'. She would see Patrick daily. And I said, 'I know, it's not right, is it?'. And she said, 'No.'"

They called a nurse, who said the bub just "needed a good poo".

"The day and the night got on and we gave him some wind drops, which he choked really badly on, and after he choked I said to my husband, 'I need to go to the hospital. He's just not right.'

"I don't know what came over me, but we took him straight to the hospital."

Once there, Kimberley heard a lot of the same. It's just wind. Babies get wind. Until one unlikely hero stepped up.

"I was going to be sent home," Kimberley shared. "But [the medical intern] just kept asking. He was listening to me, and he was saying, 'Yeah, it's not right, a baby's belly isn't that big'. He kept saying, 'I need to go and talk to my boss.'"

Medical staff swept in and out of the room. Kimberley's mind raced just as quickly.

"It wasn't until they wheeled a little ultrasound machine in and they did an ultrasound on him, and they kept going to his right side, that I knew they found something," the mum shared.

"What did you find?" she asked desperately.

"We won't know until tomorrow."

Though she stayed in the hospital overnight, Kimberley didn't sleep a wink. She lay awake on Google, frantically searching Patrick's symptoms until medical staff suggested that her husband Shane return tomorrow for a follow-up ultrasound.

"I knew then it was serious," Kimberley said. "I remember saying to my husband, 'I think it's cancer. And he's like, 'No, that's ridiculous. Babies don't have cancer, he's eight weeks old'. And I was like, 'I don't think it's going to be good."

The next day, doctors said they'd found a mass.

"That's when I collapsed," Kimberley shares. "I thought, 'He's going to die.'"

Patrick during cancer treatment. Image: Supplied

Having watched her father battle cancer for 12 years, Kimberley was well-versed on the deadly disease.

"To think that my eight-week-old baby was going to go through that journey too, I just couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel."

Eventually, Kimberley and Shane were pulled into a room, where the doctor said the words no parent wants to hear: "I'm going to just say one word, because that's the only word you're going to hear," he told them. "Patrick has a mass on his adrenal gland and a lot of masses around his liver. We think he's got a neuroblastoma, which is a childhood cancer."

After further screening with the oncology team and Monash Children's Hospital, they received the official diagnosis. Patrick had neuroblastoma stage 4S — a cancer commonly found in the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys. The S meant that he was under 12 months of age.

Treatment began straight away, including four rounds of chemotherapy three weeks apart, followed by a surgery to remove the primary tumour. If he responded well to chemo, Patrick wouldn't lose a kidney.

"His belly was growing to the point where veins were popping out of his belly. That's how big his belly was, and it was starting to affect his breathing," Kimberley told Mamamia.

"His first round [of chemotherapy] was his worst, he nearly died. He contained a lot of fluid. We had three days of chemo being dripped into him, and they put him on fluids as well. For a little baby that was already so big in the belly, to have so much more fluid, if your body contains that much fluid it can really kill you."

In the lead-up up to the second round, Kimberley did everything in her power to prepare little Patrick.

Patrick, now four, is in remission. Image: Supplied

"We were trying to get him well again. He needed some red blood cell transfusions. He needed to get some fluid off him, but then he became malnourished because we basically stripped everything off him. I had to try to build his weight back up to then start round two."

After a terrible first experience, it was a daunting prospect to do all over again.

"I was so scared, because I was like, how are we going to go through three more rounds of this?"

Luckily, Patrick "responded really well" as the treatment went on. "He put more weight, which was great. He was growing and feeding well. Obviously he was nauseated, but medication would help. Each round, as hard as it is, actually got better."

Now, Patrick is four years old and in remission. Just days ago, he had a routine bi-annual scan and was given the all-clear.

"His liver is still a little bit enlarged and there's a lot of scar tissue, but it's all working well. His weight is where it should be. He's growing. He's going to be a tall boy. He's just where he should all be, which is great, because you worry about the effects of starting chemo at such a young age."

Patrick with his older brother, Harry. Image: Supplied

Waiting anxiously at home for Patrick's recent scan results was his brother Harry, who is three years older than Patty.

Harry was there for his brother's entire cancer journey, but had to stay home due to the pandemic.

"There was a lot of him just being hand-balled to everyone, but he coped really well," Kimberley said of her eldest.

"He's so protective of his brother. It's affected him even now. On Wednesday, he knew that I was going down to the hospital with Patrick, and Harry said that he had an upset tummy at school. I think he was just a little bit worried, and I didn't answer my phone when the school called, so I think that panicked him even more.

"He worked himself up so much at school that he had to come home. As soon as I walked into the school, straight away he asked, 'How's Patrick? Why didn't you answer your phone mum?'"

While he is now in remission, Patrick and his family have to wait for the five-year mark to feel more at ease.

"If cancer is going to come back, especially in kids, it shows that it comes back in the first five years. So they watch him closely for the first five years, and then after that, he will get a scan every 12 months until he's 18," explained Kimberley.

By sharing her story, she hopes that others in the same boat will feel less isolated.

"I want my story out there, because it's such a rare cancer. But when your child has been diagnosed with it, it's not so rare," Kimberley said. "The more people you talk to you, they say, 'Oh, I know somebody that went through that'. Then you don't feel alone."

Kimberley and Shane are sharing Patrick's story in support of Run2Cure Neuroblastoma, taking part on Sunday, November 10 in Melbourne. Find out more, register for your local Run2Cure event, or donate at run2cure.org.au.

Feature Image: Supplied.