Sam's Fund

When Sam was born he had an ectopic heart beat, and it was a very stressed delivery, at the age of 12 months my husband and I noticed that he never really used his left arm, we just dismissed this as his preference. At the age of two Sam was referred to the pediatricians to see why he had Hemiplegia cerebral palsy down his left side, it also affects his left leg. Sam was sent for an MRI to see if his birth had caused a lack of oxygen to his brain and caused the hemiplegia. February this year was a month that we will never forget, after Sam’s MRI the doctor sat us down, she had a worried look on her face, as the doctor delivered the news to us that Sam had a 5cm white mass in his brain, most likely to be an astrocytoma brain tumor, My husband and I looked at each other it felt like the whole world had just stopped spinning and a pain in our hearts was overwhelming. Sam had an emergency appointment booked for the next day in Sheffield to see the neurosurgeon. The next day was surreal I felt I was in a bad dream and we floated into the neurosurgeons office for his diagnosis for Sam, he too believed that the mass in Sam’s brain was an astrocytoma but as his birth was so stressed he wanted to wait before he gave Sam a biopsy, another specialist said it could have been a stroke. We waited 3 months for another MRI for the scan to reveal no real change but the neurosurgeon gave us the option for Sam to have a biopsy, my husband and I decided it was time to get an answer and we went ahead with the biopsy. For the whole week following the scan and waiting for the results we felt assured oh yes its just the stroke surely something as bad as a brain tumor could not happen to our beautiful boy. The phone rang it was the doctor with the biopsy results I picked up the phone and My husband and I held hands and listened together on the phone, the doctor explained Sam’s mass is a grade 2 astrocytoma, My husband went weak I could feel his heart drop to the floor and we took in the news, the hardest part of receiving the news was the 3 other children’s responses as it was hard to hide what we had just found out about our baby boy. Days that followed we built up momentum with recovering from the shock, we went to see the neurosurgeon who said he wouldn’t operate with the stage that the tumor is and that an operation will most likely paralyze Sam’s left side and cause harsh brain damage. The grade 2 brain tumor Sam has will mean he needs scans every 4 months and if any changes occur in his tumor they would like to start chemotherapy. When he is older the tumor is likely to progress into something more aggressive. But we wont think about that right now, Sam, his sister and 2 brothers have to have as much fun as possible while we all can and being a kid is a number 1 priority in this family.  We really want to have this time while Sam is well to go and take all the kids to Disneyland Paris, while he can run still and shake mickey mouse’s hand, or even say to buzz light-year to infinity and beyond. Our finances are lacking and time isn’t on our side with four children it seems the impossible dream to go to Disneyland next year, but we set this fund to see if the dream can become true, thank u for reading and letting us share our new path.