Oscar's Story

Our journey with childhood blood cancer began 16 months ago, and its far to say it’s been a rocky journey so far.

Oscar was a sporty 12 year old, and was particularly into his football, training and playing for two different team up to 4 times per week. A couple of months before his full diagnosis we began to notice that he seemed to feel the after effects of playing, and towards the end came of early as he was tired.

Although he carried on training he missed a couple of weeks of matches and had felt sick on a couple of occasions. One night he woke up complaining of aches and pains, we put it down to ‘growing pains’. He carried on going to school until one day he came early with stomach pains and feeling sick.

We contacted the GP and where told that it was a virus and to keep him of school and he should feel better in a week. He didn’t, and started to have a sore mouth and tongue, he had a slight rash in the end his eye was starting to close.

After 3 different visits to hospitals, he was taken by ambulance to A&E with a temperature and severe headaches. After finally being admitted he spent the weekend very ill and in lots of pain, we waited on tests and scans to be reported on, but we knew there was a mass in his brain. We were absolutely devasted and anxiously waited on him recovering from an operation to release pressure in his sinuses. We were finally told that he had Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) which is a type of blood cancer, and that the mass on his scan was as a result of blood clots around his brain, and it was this that was putting pressure on his nerves making his eyes close. The severe pains we caused by tiny fractures in his bones also as a result of leukaemia. He started on an intensive treatment pathway to first suppress the leukaemia, but it’s fair to say that the cocktail of chemotherapy drugs was harsh on his body.

At one point he was losing weight rapidly and could not swallow or tolerate any food, despite having a feeding tube. His hair quickly fell out and the day we shaved what was left off, was one of the hardest days in our lives. For the next 12 weeks he tolerated so many setbacks and was super brave when his liver and pancreas were struggling to cope.

Then gradually some better days came, and his mum who had been at his bed side all the time helped him start to eat, he started to get about the ward in a wheel chair as the chemotherapy had damaged his ligaments and muscles in his legs. He celebrated his 13th birthday still in hospital but then we finally got him home. Whilst it’s fair to say we still have good days and bad days, and we take nothing for granted, he is making good progress, and is now in a maintenance phase of his treatment. His chemo is largely taken at home although he still goes to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for periods of intensive treatment, including some chemo into his spinal fluid, and still he never complains. The staffing looking after him have been fantastic and we are so grateful for all those who have helped us through our journey. We have discovered that much of the support that Oscar and the rest of us have received have come from the kindness and generosity of volunteers and charities.

As we finally make our plans for a well-earned break for the four of us as a family, we are so indebted to the Ben Saunders Foundation for making this possible. From the bottom of our hearts thank you.

From Stephen, Jo, Luke and Oscar