A nine-year-old schoolgirl who visited GPs six times between September 2009 and January this year complaining of sickness and headaches was diagnosed with a brain tumour by her optician.

The Daily Mail reports that Shanice Bailey’s mother Laura, 27, from Wisbech in Cambridgeshire took her for an eye test after GPs at the Clarkson Surgery in Wisbech repeatedly told her that Shanice was suffering from asthma. On the last visit to the surgery, a doctor there referred Shanice to a paediatrician to investigate her symptoms.

However, when Shanice developed a squint before the appointment, her mother arranged for her to have an eye test and optician Nadia Ahmed – who works for Specsavers in Wisbech – found that schoolgirl had a brain tumour ‘the size of a plum’ growing out of a nerve and pressing on her brain stem. If left, the tumour might have caused permanent paralysis.

Ms Bailey was advised to take her daughter straight to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, Norfolk, where a scan revealed the two-inch ‘schwannoma’ tumour. The tumour was removed during a nine-hour operation 11 days after diagnosis – and Shanice spent one month in hospital recovering from the surgery.

Her mother said that she would ‘feel forever grateful’ towards the optician at Specsavers who spotted the growth:

‘It's so lucky we went to Specsavers when we did, otherwise the effects could have been devastating –I kept taking Shanice back to the doctor as her symptoms got worse and more frequent.

‘Originally they said her symptoms could mean anything but then they thought it was asthma because she was coughing when she was sick,’ said Ms Bailey.

‘If they hadn't have found the tumour, she could have died because it was blocking fluid at the top of her spine.

‘She has been so brave it was unbelievable – she hasn't cried once,’ Ms Bailey added.

Despite GPs repeatedly failing to diagnose the tumour, Ms Bailey said that she did not blame the doctors because she felt they should be given more training in checking for such problems.

‘Just because it's rare doesn't mean they should ignore it,’ she said.

A schwannoma tumour is a benign growth usually found in elderly women, but in Shanice, it was growing out of Shanice's hypoglossal nerve – a nerve which leads to the back of the tongue – blocking fluid at the top of her spine.

Shanice also suffered a vasospasm one week after surgery – an event when blood enters the brain. She needed further surgery to drain away cerebrospinal fluid.

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