Some of our journey to date

In 2010 we were your normal average family, Tyler had been suffering from some headaches so we went for what we thought was a routine hospital appt. Following a MRI scan we were asked to go to the children's ward, when the consultant met us at the door we knew that life would never be the same again. Tyler had a brain tumour and within half an hour we were in a ambulance on our way to Southampton hospital, he needed life saving surgery which would take place the next day. There are no words to explain how as a parent you feel when you are told that your child's life is at risk.This operation caused many physical difficulties including visual and mobility . Tyler spent much of that year in Chichester and Southampton hospital undergoing many more operations and trying to learn to walk again. We have seen the best and the worst of the NHS and when Tyler was first admitted they were at their best it worked like a well oiled machine and saved his life, it was after the crisis that things didn't always work as well. Tyler himself was amazing and through himself into his recovery determined that he would walk again , this was despite having to lie with the fact  that due to tumour location it was too risky to remove it all. When we came home we rescued Tyler's beloved Charlie who helped him learn to walk again. With Charlie and lots of physio and hydro therapy (often stopping to be sick) Tyler became virtually mobile again. He felt passionately that the symptoms of brain tumours needed to be highlighted and worked with Brain Tumour UK to help promote the symptoms. Many GP's will not see a brain tumour in a child in their career, in Tyler's case the symptoms were severe headaches and vomiting, particularly overnight. We were lucky and got Tyler diagnosed quickly this is not the case with all children. Tyler undertook radio interviews and gave talks even representing Brain Tumour UK at children in need. The hope at this point was that the tumour would do nothing and that there would be some return to normal life. Unfortunately this wasn't the case and the tumour grew meaning that Tyler had to have intense radiotherapy. This was one of the first encounters that we had with red tape. Southampton felt that Tyler would best be treated in America and put the case through to NHS England, this was declined as Tyler had turned 16. We faced the awful decision of trying to fight this which was going to take a lot of time whilst he was getting ill or having the best treatment at Ston hospital. In the end we all decided that it was in Tyler's best interests to have the Treatment asap and this was don in Jan/Feb 14. More to follow