As you may be aware I try to sponsor a particular charity each year in order to give something back to people less fortunate. On October 1st a little boy called Roux was born, who has had serious complications in his short time with us, I have spoken to Roux's mum and here is his story. ‘Get the tissues handy’

So the little man was born on the 1st October 2019. We noticed his left eye was swollen as soon as he was born. Hospital told us it was from birth and it would go down, a week passed and it was getting worse so took him back and they said it could be an infection so gave us antibiotics. It continued to get worse and then he started to lose weight as he wouldn’t feed. We ended up taking him to Hull A&E on Sat 2nd November as he hasn’t fed all day and we were worried he was going to get dehydrated. They saw how poorly he looked there and asked about his eye and head size, both had grown. They took him straight for a CT scan and hooked him up to all sorts of machines, drips etc. After the scan they told us they could see a shadow on his brain and that they couldn’t treat him there as he needed specialist care so we would have to go to Leeds. We weren’t allowed in the ambulance with him as 2 doctors and lots of machinery needed to go with him. When we got to Leeds we were taken into a room and told he had a huge brain tumour and a build up of fluid that was putting a huge amount of pressure on him and was putting his life at risk. They’d already put a needle through his skull to relieve some of the pressure. They told us they needed to operate straight away to save his life, but weren’t too sure of what they were going to do in the op as he was so critical. Said that if we’d have left him a little longer to bring him in we’d have lost him. The op lasted from 8pm until about 4am, they drained the fluid and took a biopsy from the tumour, they told us it was the size of 2 oranges and was extremely aggressive and they’ve never seen a tumour of this severity in such a young child. Roux was then placed on intensive care. On the Wednesday they took him down to theatre again to begin to remove the tumour. He was in 8 hours and they got 30% out, the following Wednesday they did the same and got a further 50% out. He was then given a break from surgery and we were allowed home for a couple of days. When we went back they scanned him and found his tumour had grown and fluid had built again. So they went in for the 4th time Which has left a pea sized tumour in the orbit of his left eye, they think this is where it originated and he’s had it pretty much since conception. After the 4th op he took a turn for the worse, had a really low blood pressure and began to leak brain fluid so they had no choice but to take him back in the next day for a 5th op. They found a blood clot and a leak so removed the clot and patched the leak. They also fitted an external drain which came from the top of his head for the fluid to go to. He was really unwell had began having regular seizures so we were taken into a room and told that they weren’t willing to carry out anymore surgery and that they had searched the world to see if anyone has had a similar case to Roux that could help but no luck. so we had 2 options, the first being chemo with little evidence that it would make any difference or palliative care. We decided that he’d fought through 5 surgeries and not given up despite all the odds been stacked against him so we weren’t willing to give up on his behalf. So we were going to give chemo a go. He spent a few weeks recovering and then they removed the drain. We were allowed home for weekend leave but when we went back they found that the fluid had built again and they said they needed to operate again otherwise we’d lose him. They operated and fitted him with a shunt, basically an internal drain that takes his brain fluid into his stomach for him to pee out (something we do naturally). He spent lots more time recovering and we were allowed to go home for Xmas. We’ve been back for an MRI scan and from that and based on how well the shunt has worked and how responsive and well Roux is doing they’ve decided to go for his 7th op which is on Tuesday. As you can imagine we’re absolutely over the moon that they will.

So......

One person that people may not be aware of is a little boy called Noah, now Noah is Roux’s older brother. Noah has attended Kixx since he was 18months old and has absolutely loved every minute, however due to the situation, Amy and Anthony spending day after day in Leeds hospital the family are struggling to get Noah to sessions as he wants to be able to see his little brother too. Baring in mind how special Christmas is to us all as parents, I can’t imagine how difficult Christmas must of been for the Owen Family.

After an extremely tough tough period as a family, I would love our Kixx family to pull together and to help this family out as much as possible.

I am going to organise a session for all of our children to attend at their normal academy on their particular week off... which will be either Wolfreton and Kingswood on Feb 29th and Beverley Leisure, St Mary’s and Andrew Marvell on March 1st.

What I am going to do is ask parents to pay as much as they like for their child to join the session that weekend! All proceeds will go to the family to help out with essentials that may be needed. There will be buckets at each of the sessions for you to put in as much or as little as you want, there is no minimum or no maximum.

Let’s pull together as a Kixx family and make a difference to one of our own.

please follow Roux’s journey on their social media Instagram: rouxarmy

#RouxsArmy