"SEEING the torment and the pain and how frightened he is, I would never wish this on any other family."

Bianca Walker's 18-month-old son Slater was diagnosed with a brain tumour on April 18.

"The first sign that something wasn't quite right was his head started to tilt," she said.

After a trip to the osteopath, Slater's conditioned worsened, with his balance starting to fail.

"I took him to the doctor again and her first reaction was that there was something wrong with his ears," Ms Walker said.

With no improvement, the former long-time Whitsunday local returned to the doctor twice more before being referred to a paediatrician.

During the wait for an appointment, Slater's conditioned worsened again.

"Over the weekend it had got to the point where he wasn't walking unless he was holding both my hands," Ms Walker said.

"As soon as we got there and the doctor said there's nothing in the x-ray, he said 'I want you to get straight to Gold Coast Hospital'.

"At 8am the next morning we had the whole paediatric team in the room because they had a pretty good idea what it could be.

"And within 10 minutes of the MRI running, they could see it was a posterior fossa brain tumour."

Slater was then transferred to Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane, where he was taken straight into surgery.

A drain was put in and 80% of the tumour removed.

"He's now recovering from the resection and waiting to start chemo

therapy," Ms Walker said.

There's a long road ahead, with plans to operate again once the chemo has caused the tumour to recede, but already the bills are piling up.

"It's already cost us into the thousands of dollars," Ms Walker said. "We've had to leave our unit on the Gold Coast where we're still paying rent and rent places (in Brisbane)."

To help Slater continue his fight, visit www.gofund me.com/gszn2kxg. Ms Walker urged parents to return to their doctor if their child's condition did not improve.