James Collins' Journey with DIPG

On Monday, James went to school as he usually would, although on this day, he lost his coordination, fell over and vomited. He was rushed to the Broken Hill Hospital, where an MRI showed a mass in his brain. The following day, on Tuesday, the 29th of November, James was flown from Broken Hill to the Women's and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide by the Royal Flying Doctors Service, where the doctors confirmed the diagnosis of Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. This is an extremely aggressive type of brain tumour, which due to the level of aggressiveness and the ability of it to invade neighbouring tissues, is considered an incurable, inoperable brain tumour that has a 0% survival rate. His scans showed the mass in his cerebellum growing into his brain stem, in turn affecting his motor and strength on the left side of his body, making it difficult to walk independently and making him easily fatigued. Although through this all, he is still the cheeky, chatty boy he always has been, continuing to crack jokes all the time.

His amazing Doctors have recommended radiation therapy, he starts his Radiation therapy on Monday, the 5th of December, and treatment will continue for 6 weeks, 5 days a week. Due to his mum being weeks away from giving birth, his Dad, Jon, will need to dedicate his time to be by his side through all of his appointments. This can be financially challenging as he will be unable to work while continuing to pay daily parking and other bills. We have been given 8-18 months to spend with this beautiful boy, and he will have a few good-quality months. When the Radiation is complete, and he will hopefully feel a lot better, we hope to take him to the Gold Coast to visit the worlds, and as per his request, we will visit all the animals at the Zoo.

As a family, we are reaching out for help to raise money to help James and his family to lighten the financial load while we try to make the rest of his life as memorable as possible while filling it with so much love. These funds will also support funding a big goodbye to our beautiful boy when the time comes.