We took our son to the GP for back pain and fatigue – he was diagnosed with leukaemia within 24 hours

A Cheshire father of a 12-year-old boy who was diagnosed with a rare “high risk” form of leukaemia said he wants to share the warning signs after he initially dismissed his son’s symptoms as a flu.

Stephen McAlley, 43, an operations manager for Network Rail living in Warrington, said that when his son Ollie complained of tiredness and pain in his lower back, the father-of-three told him to “stop moaning” – adding that he “certainly wouldn’t have” taken him to a doctor if it was not for his concerned wife, Kirsty, who is a nurse.

Within hours of Ollie’s visit to his local GP in February 2025, Stephen said his son was rushed to Warrington Hospital, where they took some blood and broke the news that he had leukaemia, starting chemotherapy at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital the very next day.

Stephen said Ollie’s treatment is ongoing but it is a “possibility in the future” he may need a stem cell transplant, which is part of the reason why Stephen has signed up to run the London Marathon for the charity Anthony Nolan.

Stephen told PA Real Life: “Take your kids to the GP. If you think that there’s something going on, take them because I wouldn’t have done, if it wasn’t for my wife.

“It’s just the whole stupid dad mentality of ‘man up, you’ll be fine, get on with it’, which is just complete rubbish in hindsight,” he said.

Ollie’s symptoms first started in December 2024 while the family were on holiday in New York City for Christmas, where Stephen noted he was “fluey” and “really struggling to get around”.

Stephen said: “We took him to a GP in New York and had the privilege of paying a fair few hundred dollars for them to basically give him a Covid test and send us to a pharmacy for some kind of strong paracetamol and throat medication.”

Once the family got back to the UK in January 2025, Stephen said Ollie kept complaining of tiredness and a sore back.

“My wife took him to the pictures a couple of times,” Stephen said. “He was in one of those cinemas where you lie down in the seats and he just screamed out, holding his back. It only lasted 20 seconds or something like that.”

“Then he did it again at home a few days later,” Stephen added.

Around the same time, as the coach of Ollie’s football team, Stephen said his son was “struggling at training for a couple of weeks” before they were due to play a big game one Saturday in February 2025.

Stephen said: “He went to warm up, and he said, ‘Dad, I can’t, my back’s hurting.’ This is probably one of the worst bits of it for me because I was just like, ‘Mate, stop moaning. Go sit with your mum then’.”

At this same football game, Stephen said a fellow coach and dad noted how pale Ollie was looking, which really started ringing alarm bells for Kirsty.

Within a few days, Stephen said his wife declared one morning that she was taking Ollie to the doctor, so she called their local GP and managed to get an appointment for 4pm that same day.

Kirsty and Ollie saw a junior doctor, who Stephen said was “amazing” because she “trusted her gut” and went to her supervisor, who urged them to go for further tests.

That is when Stephen said Kirsty called him and told him to meet them at Warrington Hospital, where Ollie went straight into a ward to have blood taken.

By midnight, Stephen said four doctors took him and his wife into an empty side room away from their son and confirmed Ollie’s blast blood cells were “through the roof” and they were “pretty sure it was some form of leukaemia”.

Stephen said: “They told us that we needed to go to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital straight away and asked us if we wanted an ambulance. I remember the doctor basically said: ‘You’re going to be spending the next few months in hospital’.”

“Initially, it was just complete confusion, panic, and I was scared to death,” he added.

Stephen said they went back into the room with Ollie and decided to only say that his bloods “weren’t right”, and that they needed to go to another hospital.

Stephen said he went home to pack a suitcase for his youngest child at around 2am, before having to wake up his two other children – Evie and Caden, 20 and 17 respectively – and tell them the news.

Stephen said: “I was on my own and sobbing as I was driving, so I ended up giving my mum a call and I just remember her screaming.

“Then when I got home, the kids were fast asleep. So I shouted upstairs and asked them to come down. We sat in a bedroom and I explained to them that Ollie’s bloods came back, and what the doctors thought it was.”

“Everyone’s crying… The three of us were upset and cried and had a hug. And then I basically just tried to calm them down,” he said.

Rushing back to Warrington Hospital to take Ollie and Kirsty to Alder Hey, Stephen said once they got there, Ollie was immediately wheeled into theatre for his first round of chemotherapy and to perform a Bone Marrow Aspirate, which confirmed it was leukaemia.

Within a few days, Ollie received his specific diagnosis of High-Risk Philadelphia Positive ALL.

After Ollie’s parents relayed his diagnosis to him, Stephen said “he just took it in his stride” and he has been “so resilient” throughout, despite a “brutal” ongoing 25-month treatment plan.

Ollie has had multiple rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, which Stephen said “completely nuked everything in his whole body” and scared the father of three because of how sick it made his son.

At present, Stephen said Ollie’s cancer is currently at an “undetectable” level, but he will continue to be tested regularly until April 2027.

It is possible Ollie may end up needing a stem cell transplant, which Stephen said is something very close to his heart.

Around 15 years ago, he knew of someone with blood cancer so he signed up to the donor registry of stem cell transplant charity Anthony Nolan.

Within a couple of years, he was called upon to donate for someone else in need, which he did twice for the same person.

Stephen said: “Unfortunately, the person who I donated to passed away, which was really horrible. But that person had two extra years with their family that they wouldn’t have had.”

Inspired by their son’s leukaemia diagnosis, Stephen said he and his wife will not stop “banging the drum” about Anthony Nolan to as many people as possible.

It is why he signed up for the London Marathon on April 26, which Stephen said Ollie is “buzzing” for him to undertake.

Ollie “definitely wants to come” to cheer his dad on from the sidelines, but Stephen said he is not “allowed to go on public transport” due to infection risks so the family is still working out logistics.

For Stephen, the most important thing is raising awareness of leukaemia, but specifically of charities like Anthony Nolan: “Loads of people that we know – friends and family – have already signed up, which has been amazing for us.”

“There’s been a couple of positives to come from Ollie’s diagnosis and that’s certainly one of them. We plan to get as many people on (the stem cell registry) as possible,” he added.

For more information about Anthony Nolan, visit their website: https://www.anthonynolan.org/.

You can also donate to Stephen’s London Marathon fundraiser here: https://2026tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/stephen-mcalley