Help Declan fight this illness

This is very difficult to put into words so please bear with me. My name is Andrew Saunders and this is asking you all to help our 3 year son Declan fight a rare form of cancer that he has recently been diagnosed with. He has what is called Rhabdomyosarcoma(RMS), which is a rare form of soft tissue cancer that occurs mainly in young children. This can be found on cclg.org. Right now Declan seems to look fine albeit a little sick from the chemotherapy he has already had and his mum Emma is absolutely fantastic. He will soon lose all his hair and if he survives treatment, he will never father any children and that alone is absolutely heartbreaking. He has been given a 30-40% chance of surviving treatment as he has multiple sarcoma stretching from his shoulder down to his abdomen. I was personally told that one of the side effects of the chemotherapy was that Declans heart would be weakened as well as other organs such as liver and kidneys.

Although the team at Noah's Ark Hospital are absolutely great and doing everything they can for Declan, I feel as though 30-40% is not the number we hoped to hear. The UK I believe is around 20 years behind alot of other developed countries when it comes to cancer treatment so these raised funds would be to try and give Declan a much better chance than that above.

He is a beautiful little boy and the thought of him not beating this is unthinkable so my hopes are for any funds raised to be used for Declan to receive treatment in one of those more developed countries, such as the US as they have a reputation for being the world leaders in paediatric cancer tratment.

I have no idea right now of whether treatment in the UK will be as successful as it would in the US but as a father I have to try and make that a very real possibility. As there are only around 55 new cases of this per year in the UK I do not feel as though we have the knowledge or experience to know how to treat this when compared to other countries. This is a horrible disease for any child to have and asking for help is not something I personally like or want to have to do but I have to try.

If anyone has suffered this dreadful disease and has a personal story, preferably a positive one they can share please do so as I am struggling to find anything that can give us hope as a family.

On a personal note, I want to thank each and every one of you for reading this and considering a donation. If the goal is not met and treatment elsewhere is not an option or he beats this disease and pulls through these funds will be used to improve Declans life in a very positive way so from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much, it really means everyhing to us and God bless each and every one of you.

Andrew.