Help Dean's Journey

Dean is 3 year's old and on his 3rd birthday in July we found a small lump on the back of his tongue, his lump was mis diagnosed as a cyst and continued to grow so we took him back to the hospital worried and got referred to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children to have a biopsy.

They took a sample for biopsy from his tongue in September and thats when everything started to go wrong for him.

2 days after the biopsy on the day he was due to be woken up from the anaesthesia his little belly started to swell up filling with gas crushing his insides, he was extremely close to dying and needed an emergency operation to open him up to release the pressure, we signed the consent forms and spent the next 6 hours agonising if our gorgeous happy little boy was going to survive.

After the surgery we were told that 70% of his small and large bowel had been crushed by the pressure and was dead, he underwent another 5 surgeries over the next 10 days to remove the dead parts and put back together what was left hoping it would be enough to help him survive. This happening was a freak accident and completely unrelated to his tongue, the doctors have done tests and run samples and still do not know how or why this awful thing happened to my boy.

We got the biopsy results back and as we had dreaded for weeks found out it was cancer. His cancer is a spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma which effects soft tissue like muscle and very rarely can effect the tongue like in Dean's case.

Dean has underwent 4 rounds of chemotherapy and his latest scan showed that the tumour has shrunk 83% in mass but still a large piece remains inside and on his tongue.

He was originally going to be getting surgery done by the UK specialists in the new year to remove the tumour but they have changed their mind as he is only 3 years old and they would need to mutilate his tongue to remove it all because of it's positioning and that could also lead to life long problems with breathing and swallowing among other things.

The specialist's now want to do proton beam therapy which is a type of radiation treatment that is not available in the UK at the moment so he will need to go to America where they have the machine needed to save his life and possibly cure his cancer.

Dean has been forced to stay in the hospital being fed through his veins as his little bowel has not started working yet for the last 4 months unable to come home, he needs me or his dad there everyday and the girls need one of us at home so we have been split apart for what feels like an eternity.

Dean loves and misses his sisters Hailey who is 5 and Elise his twin sister greatly and has had visits from them in between chemo when it has been safe for him to get visitors and he has spend a lot of time chatting to everyone at home via facetime and always asks to go home not understanding why he can't right now.

Dean's dad was self employed and has been unable to work since the day Dean nearly died and was our provider so it has been a rough time financially for the family as he is with Dean or looking after the girls back at home.

The NHS are going to fund his treatment and pay for me and his dad to go with him but will not pay for his twin (Elise) and older sister (Hailey) so we need to raise the funds to help bring the family back together and give Dean all the love and support he needs.

We need any help you can offer, be it a donation or a share via social media to unite Dean with his sisters and be able to afford to pay for passports/flights/living expenses/bills at home and to bring them to America with him, the treatment is supposed to take 6 weeks but could be extended to 10 depending on complications or extra courses.

We are unsure how much all of this is going to cost and have a very long journey ahead of us and you can help make sure that Dean and his family get to America together and reduce the financial stress and worries we have. Without your help it is likely that me or dad will have to go with Dean and the other will have to stay at home with the girls.

I apologise for the long post but I thank you for reading Dean's story, I  will make sure to update everyone as we go down this path together.