Help Torben kick Cancers Butt!!

************TORBENS STORY****************

Torben story

( written by his Mummy )

On the 22nd of October 2022 after seven weeks of illness and fighting our GP to listen to our concerns, Torben was rushed to hospital after collapsing at home. After days of testing, on the 25th of October he was diagnosed with a brain tumour after me insisting of an MRI.

From the moment of diagnosis till now, there’s barely been any time to let our feet touch the ground.

It’s true what they say, your life literally implodes when something like this happens and the shockwave of the words “I’m afraid your child has a brain tumour” is catastrophic.

Torben was transported as a matter of urgency from our local hospital to our regional trauma centre of Southampton that night.

The following 36 hours consisted of tests, blood work and tough conversations about the immediate steps required to save Torben’s life. Torben was a matter of weeks away from death without intervention. He was operated on for 9 and a half agonising hours! Our neurosurgeon was amazing, he removed nearly all of Torben’s 6cm x 5cm and sent it off for testing.

The immediate aftermath of emergency brain surgery was difficult to navigate but Torben did well and surprised the professionals in charge of his care.

However on the 4th November we were told the news we had been dreading to hear.

The news that Torben had cancer and our lives imploded once again, irreparably changed from that moment on.

Nothing ever prepares you for that.

Torben has since been diagnosed with Medulloblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer which affects the cerebellum and spinal cord.

He’s completed a mighty 31 rounds of high dose radiotherapy and fought a serious case of sepsis while in London over Christmas and New year.

He’s currently on Piam Brown at Southampton hospital undergoing his high dose chemotherapy. The first round of that lasted 43 days and Torben was extremely unwell and had nurses and doctors very worried about him.

To see your child having to go through all of this is heartbreaking all I wanted to do is take it away from him. I would give my life for his in a heartbeat.

He has had numerous infections and had an oxygen requirement for nearly three weeks which extended the inpatient stay by even chemotherapy standards.

The road ahead is long for Torben, the type of cancer he has is very aggressive and the relapse rate is high.

We are hoping to cure Torben and if love could cure him he would be cured a 1000x over.

Unfortunately Torben won’t leave this journey as the same happy and smiley boy that he once was playing happily in school with his friends innocently without a care in the world.

The little life he once had, before this awful nightmare became his life instead.

The challenges he will face remain to be seen but we’ve been warned of disabilities and life limiting conditions.

Our hope is that whatever time we have left with Torben both in and out of hospital can be spent making sure that he is as happy and loved as possible with his sister and brother.

His siblings are missing him dearly.

They are struggling to cope with the reality that Torben being unwell comes with.

Their whole life & routine has changed.

Everything they all once knew has been flipped upside down.

Our hope is that we can make the time that we have together as memorable happy and fun as possible.

- Torbens Mummy

The struggle for Torbens family all living in this absolute nightmare is seriously taking its toll for them.

Torben is a lovely little boy who is 6 years old from portsmouth.

He loves dinosaurs, he’s had his faithful diplodocus by his side throughout his treatment which has been to every radiotherapy, operation, hospital stay and round of chemo.

He loves Lego and Minecraft and when things are tough, builds himself beautiful worlds on Minecraft to escape into.

He loves cars and Toy Story, Mr Bean and watching things like floor is lava. He loves space and planets.

He has a few favourite nurses and they all love him, they make treatment easier because they’re so loving.

He gets poorly easily because of the toxicity of the chemo he’s on. He struggles to eat and drink during treatment due to the chemo stripping the membranes inside his mouth, stomach and bowel. He’s very brave and is so understanding about the nurses needing to do their jobs, they all say what a beautiful and kind boy he is.

Amy, Torbens Mummy is such a beautiful human being, this is absolutely heart wrenching to watch them all go through.

Things such as the cost of food travel and additional things needed for hospital for Torben to make his time somewhat manageable while in hospital and to try and distract him and his siblings is costly.

I and a lot of others just want to make Torben and his family feel safe in every other area to not have to worry about food money and where their next meal is coming from. To not have to worry about the impact all of this is having on credit cards.

If you could spare anything at all nothing is too small.to help this Lovely family in their time of need.

Let’s make Torben smile

Thank you

- Sam