In August 2022 my friends Sarah and Marc had a beautiful little boy named Thomas.

From the day Thomas was born his struggles began, 1st they found out that he had cleft palate at just 24 hours old and needed to be cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICA) at the hospital as he also had a fast heart rate. He was fed via a feeding tube for the first 5 days until he was assessed by the cleft team to see if he could feed from a special bottle designed for cleft babies. These bottles cost 25 pounds each.

Fast forward to the end of October, Sarah noticed (when Thomas was being held by his older sister), that he had a cat eye in the light. From there Sarah knew that something wasn't right, but couldn't see the cat eye again. She called the GP but they didn't feel that it was anything to worry about and by the 3rd phone call they booked her for a telephone appointment.

Five phone calls to the GP later and Thomas finally got a face to face appointment with a Doctor. The 1st GP said he couldn't see anything, but because of the photo he would refer him to the hospital. The hospital saw him the next day and they said they could see a pale part of the eye right at the back, but there was nothing to worry about as 20% of the population has this. But because they weren't a specialists in the eye, they wanted to do a referral to the eye clinic. The specialists called Sarah with an appointment for Thomas.

Little Thomas had to have eye drops in his eye to allow the Dr to see at the back of the eyes, they took pictures of the back of his eyes and then sent them off and had to wait. It was this day that it was confirmed poor little Thomas (at only two months old) had cancer. The doctor informed Sarah and Marc that it was called retinoblastoma.

They had to go back to the waiting room while he made some calls, they went back in and he had already booked them to be seen at The Royal London Hospital, who specializes in this type of cancer. Its a rare cancer that only affects 40-50 babies a year.

Then on November 17th they had the full diagnosis of bilateral retinoblastoma, this is a very rare form of eye cancer that affects both eyes. Poor Thomas had to be put to sleep for this to be diagnosed. He has 2 tumors in 1 eye, the other eye had 1 large tumor which has affected some of his vision. They had started the treatment of cryotherapy on one of the smaller tumors, which is to freeze the tumor.

Thomas then started on chemo therapy, he had just finished his 2nd round of chemo when the Doctors then diagnosed him with Sepsis. At the same time Thomas was having to go back and forth to the Hospital as he was unable to hold down his feed.

Thomas has now just finished his 4th round of chemo and has managed to fight off a number of infections, including the Sepsis.

This will effect Thomas for the rest of his life, he still doesn't have the all clear from cancer, it will effect his vision and he has also still got to under go surgery to correct his palate at a later date this year. This is too much for any one to go through, especially a 8 month old baby.

Sarah and Marc are incredible people and amazing parents, Sarah volunteers as a support worker to new mums to help with breast feeding and also works as a support worker with adults who have acquired brain injuries.

Marc has had to take time off from work unpaid and will need to continue this for some time to be there for his son, wife and their other 3 children. The effects of this, as well as the additional costs they are currently facing for equipment, travel and anything else that Thomas needs right now isn't something they should have to be worrying about right now.

I would really appreciate it if you could give anything to help them and ease some of the life pressures they are currently facing.

thank you xx