Jaspers Mountain Climbers

Hello everyone we are Wixams Wanderers Avengers U8 football team. One of our players Jasper is currently having a challenging time in hospital (story below) and we would like to raise some money for him and his brother to have a football related day out once he is back up on his feet. We have decided as a team to climb Everest using our stairs at home and are looking for sponsors to support us.

Mount Everest is 29,029 ft high (or 8,848 meters) high, so the team will need to climb 58,070 stairs to reach the summit! Based on a set of 15 steps on a flight of stairs, that's 3,871 times up the stairs.

The team will do roughly 15 flights a day every day in august each to complete the challenge. (Up and down is 1 flight)

Jaspers Journey. Written by Kate &Pat (Jaspers Mum & Dad)

I am writing this as an update to everything that has happened in the last few weeks as so many people have asked and I just can’t keep up with all the messages etc…. Apologies for the generic tone of the message…

As I’m sure many of you are aware, on Wednesday 29th June, Jasper collapsed at school and went to hospital with what we thought was heat exhaustion… What’s transpired over the last three weeks has absolutely turned the whole family’s life upside down!

He was taken straight to A&E from school and was kept overnight for observation on the Riverbank Ward at Bedford Hospital. The next day, he seemed all ok and was running around playing and seemingly had recovered from the funny turn the day before. It was at this point we noticed that Jasper’s face was drooping on one side and his perfect smile was crooked. We flagged this with the nurse and before we knew it, the neurologists were involved and he was sent for an MRI scan that night.

The news we received on Friday 1st July 2022 at 1pm will be stuck with us forever, our baby boy has a 4cm tumour in his brain and they would be looking to remove it asap. We were to be transferred to Addenbrookes Hospital where he would be with specialist doctors and surgeons who will be Jasper’s best chance of getting the tumour out safely. Within a couple of hours of receiving the news, Jasper was in an ambulance on his way to Cambridge to tackle the toughest challenge that life could ever possibly throw at him.

Upon arrival he was made comfortable and began a course of steroids which would help reduce the swelling until the neurological team could plan their course of action. We met with the lead neurologist, Ms Holland and her team on the Monday morning and was told of the plan which would involve Jasper going under General Anaesthetic with a view to remove the tumour fully. This would be scheduled for Friday 8th July.

The days leading up to the operation were difficult for the whole family. Jasper was considering Baptism before any of this began and was lucky enough to be baptised by our Parish Priest, Father Wayne, in the chapel at Addenbrookes with his family around him. Other family members visited and brought gifts for him during this week where he ruled ward D2 and had all of the nurses charmed by his cheeky personality! The most difficult part was explaining the process of what was coming to both Jasper and Riley. As they always have done, they both took the news on the chin and continued their brotherly tussles in the ward play area without even a hint of concern… Jasper was so brave, right up until his eyes closed and the anaesthetic took hold as he went under for the operation.

At 8:30am on the Friday morning we kissed him goodbye and wished him luck for an operation that would potentially shape the rest of his life, as we walked away from him then, I think the true depth of what we were facing really hit both Kate and I. This day will forever be the longest day of our lives as we watch hour by hour tick by with no news from the operating theatre. Nearly 12 hours passed before we were finally reunited with our boy.

Going into recovery and ICU with him was a huge mix of emotions for all of us! The relief that he had made it through an operation of such precision, with three of the best surgeons in the country all involved was overwhelming but the sense of fear at seeing the wound and all the wires and tubes and his face, emotionless and drained lying in the bed was what really hit me.

Jasper’s recovery on ICU was very quick and the doctors were happy that he had made enough progress to move down to a ward, we were taken into a private bay on ward C2 (at this point he has now also tested positive for MRSA!) We were put onto this ward which is specifically for children who are going through chemotherapy and this very quickly struck me that this soon could become our reality. Another thing that struck us was that there were no opening windows or air conditioning in this ward due to the conditions of these children and heading into the hottest week on record this was not how any of us would have wanted to enjoy the sunshine!

A week after Jasper’s operation, he seemed to slowly be improving, smiles and giggles were finally coming through and he was beginning to thread a few words together beyond the obscenities he had been throwing at us since the op! On Saturday he even started eating without the aid of a feeding tube! The physiotherapists were impressed with how he had responded post operation and they had got him taking a couple of steps and he had started to sit up in a chair rather than in the bed. We were starting to see some positive steps and this was encouraging!

On Sunday he took a backwards step as he unfortunately got an infection in his fluid drain to his head and this had made him sick and spiked a temperature which meant he needed a course of antibiotics to get him through. He has been struggling since this and his progress has gone right back to the days immediately after the operation. He has been so unbelievably strong up to this point, we, the doctors and nurses, have no reason to believe he wouldn’t make a full recovery from the infection and keep fighting as he has right up to this point.

On Monday, we met with our Oncologist, Gemma, who delivered the news I had tried to desperately block from my mind over the past few weeks, Jaspers tumour came back as cancerous and he will require treatment. The tumour has been named Medulloblastoma and it is unknown as yet whether it is standard or high risk, we await further results from the resection of the tumour to determine this which will be over the next few weeks. Once we know this they will confirm the treatment plan but he is likely to start treatment mid August.

Jasper will have to have an operation to fit a Hickman Line into his vein (around chest area) which will be a permanent fixture until treatment is finished this will enable them to do the treatment, take bloods administer other medications. With this it means he won’t be able to take part in activities he enjoys such as swimming or other sports. The timeline for the chemo and radiotherapy is likely to go on for the next year.

There is also still a concern over there being tumor remaining as a post op scan showed some mass still in the brain but the surgeons have decided to rescan in a couple of weeks to determine whether further surgery is required to remove this, the reason being is that the particular area that it is showing Ms. Holland knows was an area that bled and they had to fill with a dissolvable gorse like substance so by scanning in a few weeks they should be able to determine if this is tumour or not. If it does come back with any concerns, he may require a further operation and of course this will push back the start date for treatment.

What has been so amazing is the support, love, gifts and well wishes from so many people far and wide! From our close friends and family (of which there are so many) to school friends and also clubs and groups that Jasper is a part of it has just been unbelievable! We have enough new books to open a library, enough colouring pencils to redecorate the whole hospital and more soft toys than bed space but the lovely messages and card we’ve received have really kept all of us going! Jasper has loved hearing and seeing the video messages, he was really emotional when I read his letters from all his school friends, it’s just been incredible so thank you all so so much!

Finally, the support, hard work and efforts from every single surgeon, doctor, nurse and play staff member we have encountered has been absolutely exceptional! When people told us “Addenbrookes is the best, you’re in safe hands” we wanted to see this for ourselves but now after our time in here over the past few weeks we can absolutely see how they have the reputation that they do! They deserve every credit going their way! They are doing their everything for Jasper to make him well and ensure he is as comfortable as possible along the way and we are so grateful for every single one of them!

Please keep Jasper in your thoughts and prayers, he has been so brave, a real fighter and an absolute credit to us as parents and we are so proud of him! We’re also so proud of Riley who has had to adapt very quickly to a really strange situation where he’s been away from his brother and mum for over 3 weeks, just as he leaves primary school as well! He has done a great job in his SATS exams, received his standard amazing end of year report, was the absolute star of the show at his guitar assembly where all the younger children and their parents left the hall talking about Riley (our son!) and how amazing he was, then topped off another super year at Lakeview with his leavers assembly today where he took to the stage and done so well even with all of this going on at home! We really are so blessed to have two such fantastic children!

We want to make sure we keep everyone as updated as possible but please bear with us because there really is so much going on for all of us right now!

Thanks for all the support,

Kate & Pat