On New Year’s Eve 2013, our friends worlds were turned upside down when their 5 year old Son Ethan was diagnosed with medulloblastoma. Medulloblastoma is a brain tumour, statistics show 2 in 1 Million people are diagnosed with it. Ethan had been poorly throughout the Christmas period however doctors sent him home with orders to rest as they thought his illness was a viral infection. In this time his 4 week old sister Lily was admitted to Wigan's Rainbow Ward's High dependency unit with problems with breathing and bronchiolitis. When Ethan was taken to hospital on New Year’s Eve by his Dad, his Mum was in hospital staying with Lily. He was checked over and the doctors said it was a bad viral infection, after a couple of hours being on Rainbow Ward it came to a doctors attention that Ethan should be sent for an MRI Scan. This was when they found Ethan had a brain tumour therefore the illness he encountered that morning was a seizure, he was rushed immediately to Manchester Children’s Hospital to have the fluid surrounding his brain drained off. The next day he had an operation to remove the tumour. After the huge operation, Ethan was placed on Intensive Care whilst his parents where accommodated in the Ronald McDonald House across the road from the RMCH. Every day the family - mainly the grandparents travelled to Manchester to look after Lily whilst her parents could spend time with Ethan. From intensive care Ethan had another scan to see how well the operation had gone. The scan showed more bad news - the cancerous tumour had spread to a part of his spine and there was still 1cm left on his brain. The problem with his fluid was continuing, he had 3 scars on his head and permanent shunt in his head to help drain the brain fluid. 6 operations and at least 10 scans later.. Ethan was placed on the High Dependency Unit and started his chemotherapy, having it 24/7 for 4 day periods. 

In total as explained above Ethan spent a total of 9 week in hospital before he came home and spent priceless, precious time alone with his family. But the hospital visits were still very often; his parents transported him to and from the hospital for numerous appointments for chemotherapy and MRI Scans. The Christie was also often visited where Ethan began to make his mask for when he under-went radiotherapy – he designed the mask to look like Spiderman (After all Ethan was a super hero too).

After 5 amazing weeks spent with his Mum, Dad and baby sister Lily, Ethan got poorly again and was taken back to Manchester Childrens Hospital. That day, the family were told Ethan’s shunt had failed – Ethan underwent an emergency operation in the early hours of 2 April to replace the shunt. A couple of days passed then out of the blue Ethan suffered a number of seizures which lead to him having more MRI scans – little did we know the worst news was yet to come.. The tumor was still there, only this time the growth was more aggressive and there was nothing anyone could do. The doctors said Ethan had hours left, he was on HDU at the time, his parents were talking to his consultant which resulted in the decision to give Ethan a course of steroids as a last resort, to try and get him fit enough to attend Christies to start his Radiotherapy treatment. Ethan seemed to respond well to the steroids and five days later the NWTS team transferred Ethan to Christies, for 1 session of his Radiotherapy – which was a success and gave us all hope.

The day after it was hoped Ethan would again attend another session of Radiotherapy, but as the NWTS team arrived at the hospital Ethan’s breathing deteriorated. After having an X-Ray and an examination Ethan’s consultant confirmed the tumour had progressed.

Ethan sadly lost his brave battle against Medulloblastoma, on the 17 of April at 16:35 pm.

The family were given so much support from the doctors and nurses at RMCH and Clic Sergeant and are very grateful for the time they spent in Ronal McDonald I would hugely appreciate any donation no matter how small or big, towards this worthy charity. Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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