Its hard to know where to start in the box that says "Tell your story".  You never think that you are the parent that is going to be writing this, I still cant believe it.  We want to help raise money to fund the research and treatment of childhood cancer, in particular Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) because .......if we can spare one family this pain, your running, walking, skipping, baking and crying will have been worth it.

We lost Tommy 2 Summers ago - on June 14th 2014, on a Saturday night at about 8.30pm.  He is 18 months old - not a baby, just the most gorgeous little boy - now he will always be our little boy, he is still in our family and we love to talk about him and we want to tell his story.

Tommy is the youngest of our 3 children, Joe and Peggy, his older brother and sister, are 5 now.  He is a classic number 3 - so good natured and laid back.  Always happy, always laughing, eating Lego (I never let the twins eat Lego!), always a ray of sunshine. Even when he was incredibly ill, everyone in the hospital fell in love with him too.

We call him our sunshine boy.

Tommy was always really healthy and robust.  He'd never been to the doctors in his life.  I don't think there can be an "un shocking way" of your child dying but this is right up there on the "this cannot be happening" scale. 

We moved to Holland in November 2013.  He got a temperature at the end of May and after 2 weeks and a couple of visits to the GP, I took him to hospital - to short cut the system. I thought he might have tonsillitis or maybe even worse, a bladder infection.  4 days later, we were moved from the local hospital to the Sophia Erasmus Childrens Hospital in Rotterdam.  They had found a collapsed vertebra in his back and suspected cancer.  He was diagnosed with AML M7 that night and started his chemotherapy a few hours later.  Its horrible, its very rare and very aggressive.  Very.  We knew that night that Tommy was up against it, against the odds, we prepared ourselves for a 6 month treatment programme.

Tommy died in our arms, 2 weeks later.  He'd had the chance to have one course of chemo and while his immune system was knocked out from the chemo and the leukaemia, he developed an infection.  It was antibiotic resistant and it overwhelmed him.......and us.

I want to tell you everything about him - because when people are small, they are mostly in their immediate family's life and we have all the memories.  He has blue eyes and loads of dark brown hair, we, of course think he is the most beautiful boy in the world.  He likes broccoli, mini pancakes, chasing birds, jumping on Joe and Peggy after the bath and doing wees on the bedroom floor.  When he goes to bed, he turns on his front and stuffs mussies in his face - as many as he can get!  Oh, and he loves dancing, he loved to dance to the start of Old Jacks Boat on CBBeebies and wave at the characters. 

We are so incredibly proud of him, we cannot believe how lucky we are to have Tommy.

We want to raise money for Children with Cancer UK. They do great work into the research and treatment of Children's Cancer.  We all hear wonderful stories about the huge improvements in cancer survival rates and that's true in many cases - but actually not with the type Tommy had, it needs so much more work.  So far my incredible friends have raised over £30,000, not least through walking 100km across the South Downs one weekend last Summer, non stop, to support James, Joe, Peggy and I - making sure we know he isn't forgotten.   .

Never in your wildest dreams do you think you will need a charity like this - this only happens to other people.   Please keep giving, in Tommys memory.