A Vancouver Island toddler is fighting for her life at the hospital as she gets treated for a rare form of cancer­­--an illness that was finally diagnosed after many misdiagnoses by multiple doctors.

It started when three-year-old Hannah’s parents noticed two months ago that her stomach was growing abnormally large.

They brought her to various doctors, who told them Hannah had everything from constipation, malnutrition and an allergy to wheat and gluten. One doctor at Victoria General Hospital even told them Hannah had bad posture, said her mother Brooke Ervin.

“Everyone was telling us there was nothing wrong, there’s nothing wrong and we could tell our daughter was getting worse and worse and worse,” she said. “She was getting sick, she was vomiting uncontrollably, the lack of appetite, her stomach was stretching and swelling.”

An ultrasound done at B.C. Children’s Hospital finally showed that Hannah has a cancerous mass that extends from one side of her stomach to the other. The cancer is so rare that only three other children in the world have it, according to Ervin.

“Normally it’s localized in an eye, a muscle, it doesn’t spread,” she said. “In Hannah’s case, it’s spread everywhere. They actually don’t even know where it originated from, so that’s what makes it very rare.”

Vancouver Island Health Authority spokeswoman Suzanne Germaine said while she sympathizes with Hannah and her family, chart reviews indicate that Hannah received appropriate and timely care when she was brought into Victoria General Hospital.

Hannah has undergone surgery, and is receiving chemotherapy everyday to fight the aggressive disease. Ervin said her daughter has lost weight, and has trouble breathing because the mass in her abdomen is so big, it crushes her lungs and her heart.

Friends have set up a webpage called “Angels for Hannah” to help support the family, who have left their jobs and other younger daughter to be with Hannah in Vancouver.

With files from CTV British Columbia’s Julia Foy