Phil, Yvonne, Oscar, Saffy, Finn Parry
Oscar's page
Fundraising for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity
Story
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My Story (See the links below for my slideshow and my X Factor film):When I was 3 I was diagnosed with leukaemia (ALL) and given a 75-80% chance of survival. 3 years later I was diagnosed with ... leukaemia (JMML)! This time I was given only a 30-40% chance of survival. I was kept alive for 8 months and then went into Great Ormond Street Hospital (by now my second home) for a bone marrow transplant. 13 unpleasant weeks later on the day I was due to go home, I relapsed and was told I needed another, experimental form of transplant. This time I was given a 10% chance of survival.After another 13 weeks and a second transplant I went home (minus my spleen). Two months later, on Boxing Day, I went into hospital with an infection and a week later I went in to septic shock and was transferred back to Great Ormond Street's Intensive Care Unit. I was kept alive on a life support machine through seizures, 5 brain haemorrhages and the infection itself. On 14th January 2006 they said I would die. But not me!After 10 more weeks in hospital, learning to walk and talk again, I went home and promptly broke my back (yes, clumsy I know), ending up in a back brace for the next year or so.And then a month later, I caught infection number two and took another trip in an ambulance back to Great Ormond Street Intensive Care and life support. Ten more weeks of recuperation and physio and I came home and stayed home, in June 2007.I continued to battle with Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD) for many months and became the first child in the UK to have a transplant of MSCs (mesenchymal stem cells, a type of 'peacemaking' cell that behaves like stem cells), which cured my GVHD. Eventually my 30 medicines a day reduced, I went back to school in February 2008 and now, in December 2009, I'm on 2 drugs a day, I'm as cured as anyone can tell and I've just appeared in a film on the X Factor to promote their single, which was released to raise funds for the people who saved my life. If you want to help save the lives of other children like me, please make a donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. I am living(!) proof that fundraising saves lives on the wards - it's not all long term research done by scientists in white coats. Your money helps doctors at the sharp end do groundbreaking work.To see the slideshow of my story, follow the link below. You can also see my X Factor film there or you can find it on youtube.com. http://www.gosh.org/x-factor/the-charity-single/the-story-so-far/oscars-story/THANK YOU!OSCAR x