Logan was a healthy baby, eating well and enjoying day-care. However, at 11 months Logan was struggling to recover from frequent infections. At this time, his parents Alyssa and Shane noticed Logan’s tummy was unusually hard and round. They rushed Logan to hospital where he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. Logan’s dad, Shane, tells the family’s story,
Our amazing little boy Logan was born on the 6th of August 2020 at Casey Hospital in Berwick, Victoria during stage 4 Covid restrictions. He spent one day in Special Care, due to his little body not being able to maintain its own temperature. After a day, he was all clear and we got to take Logan home as brand-new parents.
Logan was feeding well and when he started eating solids he was a very hungry boy.
He started daycare from six months old and was initially dealing with the usual bugs quite well like most kids. At 11 months old Logan started to frequently get viruses and was struggling to get over them, we were being told to manage it by Panadol and Nurofen.
We bounced around from GP to GP and our local emergency department (ED) with answers of, “…he must be lactose or gluten intolerant”. Logan had a cute round tummy and no doctor thought it was abnormal. We came to a Friday afternoon where we changed his nappy and noticed the left side of his tummy was bulging and hard. It wasn’t like that during the morning. His virus symptoms escalated, and his temperatures were through the roof.
We hurried Logan to our local emergency department and then the doctors knew something was wrong. They rushed Logan in an ambulance, with full lights and sirens, to Monash Children’s Hospital where in the ED ultrasounds were completed and we were advised it was likely to be neuroblastoma due to the location of a large mass near the left kidney and adrenal gland.
Processing the news our 12-month-old baby, who had one of the worst diagnoses of neuroblastoma, felt like our world was completely turned upside down. You are grieving for your child but not having the time to grieve as you are immediately thrown into one of the most intense treatments to save their life.
The next day he had surgery for his Hickman line insertion, biopsy of tumour and bone marrow aspirates. Also completed urgent MIBG, CT and MRI screening scans which confirmed it to be neuroblastoma. We had never heard of this of course. Fortunately, his bone marrow was clear.
Logan had two lesions light up on both of his femurs on MIBG, as well as a 12.5cm primary tumour in his tummy. Oncologists advised this took Logan from low risk to intermediate risk. Logan had three days of intermediate risk protocol chemotherapy and dealt with it like a superhero. Upon returning to Monash the next month for cycle two, we were given the terrible news that Logan’s neuroblastoma was now high risk due to further testing coming back with N-MYC and ALK gene amplifications both found in the tumour.
Sadly, covid restrictions made it feel even more isolating as Shane and I were not able to be in the same room with Logan. So, as soon as we were given the worst news that Logan’s cancer was high risk, we were then taken back to Logan’s hospital room and told only one of us could stay.
Logan then endured a challenging induction package: five cycles of chemotherapy, stem cell harvest and surgery to remove the tumour. Logan had an amazing response, and we received the news that, at this stage, Logan’s Curie score was zero and he was in remission.
We then moved to The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) for consolidation treatments. He had a single high dose chemotherapy cycle with stem cell rescue. He dealt with this like a hero and was discharged from the ward early. Peter Mac was next for 12 cycles of radiation to his tummy and then five cycles of immunotherapy at RCH, with 6 cycles of isotretinoin whilst at home in between.
Logan completed treatment in December 2022, and end of treatment scans showed Logan was still in remission.
We are so proud of how far he has come. He was known at the hospitals by the doctors and nurses as the kid full of energy and running around the wards with a smile on his face, which made the medical team smile.
Logan’s Story Update
Since this story was posted, Logan started kindergarten, Auskick and enjoyed his weekly swimming lessons. Logan has a baby sister due very soon, and takes his big brother duties extremely seriously already.
Logan was doing so, so well with no signs of disease and we thought maybe we were one of the lucky ones and we became quite complacent. In January 2025, Logan had an MIBG scan and they found a small growth on his spleen in a similar area to when Logan was originally diagnosed with high risk neuroblastoma. The doctors thoroughly investigated and thought it may have been scar tissue from the radiation site which isn’t uncommon.
Logan then had another MIBG scan and they found that the growth had gotten bigger. The doctors are now referring to the growth as a tumour and we need to work out what exactly it is. The doctors don’t believe it is high risk neuroblastoma due to how it is growing, but think it could be one of the secondary types from the same family (ganglioneuroblastoma or ganglioneuroma).
One is a benign type of tumour, which is what we are all praying for, and the other is an intermediate type which means Logan will require further treatment. Due to the tumour growing they need to now act on it because we obviously need to know what sort of tumour we are dealing with, but also the tumour can start causing issues for the spleen if left.
Logan will be going in for surgery later this month to try and remove the tumour, but being the spot where the tumour is it is a high risk he may lose a spleen which the doctors are pre planning for certain vaccines if that is the case. Once the tumour is removed they will do the biopsy and we will then know what the next step is for Logan.
