Brodie's Story

At the end of the school summer term 2022 I was walking my 9 year old son, Brodie to school. Brodie stopped and said that he was struggling to breathe, so we slowed down and walked slowly to school. At first I thought that he was worried about something at school, but everything was fine.

Over the next couple of weeks these symptoms continued and his weight plummeted. My grandad was at the end of life so his dad took him for an urgent care appointment to the hospital, and was initially given an asthma diagnosis.

Brodie’s symptoms continued, so a few days later I took him to A&E for an urgent care appointment. The triage nurse dismissed my concerns and told me the doctor would probably not want to see him. Luckily, she was overridden. I was told he had reduced air intake in his right lung and was sent away with antibiotics.

A week later his symptoms continued and we took him to our local doctor and requested a X-ray. Following the X-ray Brodie was admitted into hospital and was given intravenous antibiotics.

The following day, on the 9th August 2022 Brodie had a precautionary CT scan, afterwards we were taken to a quiet room and was told our son had cancer. Our world fell apart, we were in despair and shock. We just couldn’t believe this was happening to our beautiful, happy, always smiling, special little boy.

Brodie was blue lighted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital to have a biopsy and a chest drain inserted. Upon being admitted he had a collapsed lung and was using just a third of his other lung.

Brodie was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma to his rib with a pleural effusion. His tumour is inoperable, he has had 14 rounds of chemotherapy and 6 weeks of radiotherapy and Protein Beam Therapy over 9 months.

Brodie has been so strong throughout his treatment and has taken everything in his stride, even continuing to attend school as much as possible. He is constantly happy and smiling. His strength and agility has amazed us throughout and he continues to make us incredibly proud with his constant resilience. Brodie finished his treatment at the end of April and was back at school at the beginning on May.

We are now awaiting his first follow up scan since his initial baseline scan.

Thank you to the Ben Saunders Foundation for this opportunity to have a family break which will help occupy our minds from the dreadful ‘scanxiety’ we face everyday.

We truly appreciate this break that was made possible by one amazing lad - Ben Saunders 💙.