Little AJ was sent home from hospital with the flu. Then his doctor noticed something ‘wasn’t quite right’

Even when little Queensland boy AJ’s “bad cold” took a turn for the worse, his parents never imagined the shocking diagnosis they would ultimately receive.

The usually energetic three-year-old began feeling unwell with what his parents, Ashlea Bretherton and her husband Joel, thought was a bad cold, but then he just became sicker.

AJ was “basically not functioning much at all” and barely eating or drinking, his mother Ashlea said.

Then his breathing began to deteriorate and “things went downhill quickly”, according to a family friend, so they took him to hospital.

AJ was diagnosed with influenza A and allowed to return home when his condition showed signs of improvement.

“We went for an emergency visit and we were sent back home after he finally ate and drank,” Ashlea, who works in administration at a hospital emergency department, said.

When Ashlea and Joel took AJ back to hospital for a check-up two days later, on August 28, the doctor noticed something “wasn’t quite right”.

“Our beautiful doctor did a quick assessment and found AJ had decreased air entry into one of his lungs,” Ashlea said.

“(They found) it was only functioning at 30 per cent.”

The doctor ordered an X-ray, and what it revealed shocked everyone — AJ had a large mass on his lungs.

The family were sent to Queensland Children’s Hospital, where AJ underwent an urgent MRI under anaesthetic.

“They found a 114.8mm mass in his chest,” Ashlea said.

“The doctors were shocked by the sheer size of it.”

AJ’s parents were told the mass was “far too big” to be surgically removed.

But a glimmer of hope emerged when more tests, scans and a bone marrow sample were able to rule out cancer.

Instead, AJ was given the diagnosis of ganglioneuroma — a rare type of tumour that often starts growing in automatic nerve cells, according to Rare Cancers Australia.

Doctors have prescribed chemotherapy for AJ to reduce the size of the tumour in the hope it can then be surgically removed.

“He will have between six and eight rounds of chemo every three weeks to reduce the mass size,” Ashlea said.

“So, treatment could possibly be finished before his fourth birthday in February.”

Ashlea has taken time off work to be with her son, and family friend Katie Kerr has set up a GoFundMe to help support the family through AJ’s ongoing treatment, surgery and recovery.

“This is all a massive shock to our family, and we are trying to keep positive,” Ashlea said.

“We are on a journey down a long road at the moment — we appreciate people reaching out and offering help where they can.”