Paddy's Story
Paddy's family visited the Cotswolds in February 2025.
We were in Colombia-where I am from (mummy)-when one day after his sixth birthday Paddy was playing football and suddenly, he had a fall.
He was unable to walk during that afternoon until the point that he was in so much agony that we decided to take him to A&E.
I did not put together the fact that he had been having shivers and sweats intermittently and nights. Paddy had hip surgery within 3 days, and we were told that he had Type B Leukaemia, immediately we started looking for a hospital to go back home to England.
We were lucky to be in contact with Dr. Gatens in Addenbrookes in Cambridge but because of our location we ended up in Leicester Royal Infirmary followed by a horrific inland journey via air ambulance.
There we were isolated as they discovered that Paddy also had antibiotic resistant bacteria in his gut, we spend thirty six daysin hospital, we felt lucky as all the staff was so caring but we were sad that Paddy was unable to go to the playroom or see other children, even his sister.
Time went on and we finally went back home having had three different Hickman lines, a nasogastric tube, steroids, and a fair amount of chemotherapy. We could not recognise our child as he bloated over, lost his hair, and was traumatised by needles. We started to push to have more care at home because it was a long drive to hospital every day, and he was feeling constantly sick and unwell in the car.
We were moved to Addenbrookes and as soon we were transferred there our nurse started to push us to send Paddy to school in a wheelchair and there is where his recovery truly started. In a matter of 5 months, he was walking again as he wanted to play football with his friends. The school was very supportive of us.
A year later the Hickman line was gone and so was the nasogastric tube. Paddy had learned how to take pills, and the chemotherapy doses eased. Another year passed and Paddy finished his treatment. Last September (2024), he rang the bell at hospital and school as well (and broke it!)
We felt immensely proud of him as he is such a tough cookie, we’d like to thank the wonderful Ben Saunders Foundation for this much needed break away.