MEDICAL MYSTERY SOLVED! - 'WE ALWAYS HAD A SICK CHILD'

After countless hospital visits, Corinne Cameron was relieved when her daughter Emily was diagnosed at five years old.

- Dionne Christian

Like many Kiwi kids, Emily Cameron spends her weekends and free time playing sport. The 11-year-old from South Auckland enjoys soccer, netball and basketball, which is a surprise and delight to her parents, Corinne and Jacob.

They remember Emily’s first five years as a period punctuated by regular trips to hospital, where their oldest child frequently ended up on an IV drip because she was dehydrated from vomiting so much.

Corinne recalls, “Friends had kids who used to get earaches and I’d say, ‘Oh, my child gets spew bugs.’ But when Emily got sick, she got really sick – dehydrated and ending up on a drip in hospital. She’d vomit every 10 minutes.”

As the family grew – Emily has younger sisters Charlotte, nine, and Anita, seven – Corinne says the vomiting episodes and trips to the hospital every three to four months became part of the fabric of family life.

“We knew no different, so it was our norm. We used to say that every Mother’s Day and every long weekend, I’d be up at the hospital because we always had a sick child. She was so happy and so active otherwise, though, we didn't think that much of it.

"It would often come on so quickly and it was often out of hours because kids love to get sick on weekends or in the middle of the night - so the response was to treat the condition now rather than looking at the overall picture."

As Emily's fifth birthday and first day at school drew near, Corinne became increasingly concerned that she still took lengthy afternoon naps.