Relief For Taio Henry

On the 17th December 2013, we welcomed our beautiful baby boy Taio into the world. For the next three years Taio was a happy healthy child who met all his milestones, then one day everything started to change. Taio began bumping into things that were right in front of him, he started to confuse family members and he started to be unsure and scared of his surroundings. This all happened so quickly. We took him to the doctor, who organised an appointment with an eye doctor the very next day. The eye doctor examined Taio and sent him straight to Orange Hospital. At Orange hospital he was given a CT scan and an MRI. That's when we were told our baby boy has a brain tumour. Within days Taio was flown by the Royal Flying Doctors to Sydney and admitted to Westmead Children's hospital. More test were done and surgery was scheduled. On the 15th March our baby boy had his brain surgery. His head was cut opened and the tumour cut out. We were told it was a Craniopharyngioma. After hours of surgery he was placed in PICU. His recovery had began. Taio spent the next week in The Commercial Travellers Ward, and began to get back to his old self. Unfortunately his eyesight was showing no signs of returning. We were told that he would need follow up treatment, which would probably be radiotherapy. We returned home and tried to live as normal life as possible, we constantly prayed, hoped and wished that Taios eyesight would return. We also began to think of Taios future without sight, and what we needed to do to ensure it was all it could be. On Monday 1st May Taio returned to Westmead Children's Hospital which is around 5 hours from our home town for a follow up MRI. From that MRI it was discovered the tumour had returned. The following Wednesday we were back at the hospital, and Taio was having surgery again to have the tumour cut out. As I write this he is in PICU recovering from it. Soon Taio will begin 6 weeks of radiotherapy at Westmead. Which means Taio and I will be spending a lot of time in the Westmead Children's hospital, while the rest of our family will have to be 5 hours away. We don't know what the future holds for our beautiful little man. All we know is it's going to be a long difficult time ahead, with lots of tests, lots of hospital visits, and lots of uncertainty.