Braiden-Lee's Story

Braiden-Lee Prescott was born on 7th August 2009, a much loved first son to Wayne and Stephanie. At the end of 2010 Braiden-Lee became a big brother to Tyler and he took to his role like a very proud duck to water. He is a happy and cheeky three year old boy who loves Mickey Mouse and Thomas the Tank Engine.

But one day in the middle of February 2012, parents Wayne and Stephanie noticed that he had started limping. 3 days later he also developed a temperature, so Wayne and Stephanie took Braiden-Lee to the doctor. The doctor said that he couldn’t actually see Braiden limping, but checked his leg anyway. He thought everything was fine and prescribed him some paracetamol for his temperature.

Despite this Braiden-Lee didn’t get better, he got worse. Wayne and Stephanie took him to Leigh walk-in centre. After the Triage assessment, Braiden-Lee was rushed into a side room, stripped down to just his nappy where he had a fan directed at him to cool him down for half an hour.

The walk-in centre arranged for Braiden-Lee to be transferred to Wigan General Hospital where medical staff ran a range of tests on Braiden-Lee. Their initial diagnosis was of septic arthritis, and they transferring Braiden-Lee to Manchester Children’s Hospital. Following x-rays and ultrasound to his hips, they found some signs of ‘thickening’ which they thought confirmed the septic arthritis diagnosis.

Braiden-Lee went into surgery for an hour and half, and his hip joint was washed out to get rid of the infection. The surgeon told his parents that he had not found any signs of infection and was happy with Braiden-Lee following the operation.

However, after a few weeks and a course of intravenous antibiotics in hospital Braiden-Lee wasn’t getting any better, so staff gave him a CT scan of his abdomen and legs followed by an MRI scan. The MRI scan and they found “something” in his legs, hips, pelvis, in a few vertebrae in his spine, and a mass in his abdomen behind his tummy.

The oncologist spoke to Wayne and Stephanie and told them that the tests had shown Braiden-Lee did not have septic arthritis. This was when Braiden-Lee’s parent got the devastating news that the doctors thought their precious son had either had leukaemia or neuroblastoma.

Braiden-Lee needed more tests and three hours in the operating theatre where they did a bone marrow biopsy, a biopsy of the tumour in his abdomen and fitted a Hickman Line into his chest.

The next day the bone marrow biopsy results confirmed the frightening news: cancer cells had been found. Just days later the tumour biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of stage 4 neuroblastoma.

Three year old Braiden-Lee and his family need to travel to the United States to start treatment before Christmas 2012 so that Braiden-Lee can receive the Children’s Oncology Group neuroblastoma treatment, which uses the antibody ch14-18, and cytokines IL-2 and GM-CSF. This treatment will help stimulate Braiden-Lee's immune system so that his own body should be able to recognise and attack the neuroblastoma if it was to return. This is always a worry with this deadly disease, where the relapse rates are high.

The treatment Braiden-Lee will receive in the United States is not available in the same format in the UK, where anti-GD2 and IL2 or just anti-GD2 alone are available as part of a trial. This is why his family wants to go to America to get the treatment he needs to give him the best chance of beating the disease.

The proposed treatment will not be funded by the NHS which is why Braiden-Lee needs your help. The therapy Braiden-Lee requires is likely to cost in excess of £200,000. If you can help, please make a donation to the Neuroblastoma Alliance UK, or organise a fundraising event to raise money for Braiden-Lee's Appeal.

Wayne said, “I find it hard to put into words how devastated we were by the diagnosis of neuroblastoma, but we’ve done our best to pick ourselves up and be strong for our little man. Braiden-Lee is having frontline neuroblastoma treatment now and is doing so well – he’s still smiling! He’s our inspiration, a very special little boy and he is a true fighter. We would do anything to get our boy the treatment he deserves and ask everyone to do what they can to help us get to America.”

Please give as much as you can afford to help Braiden-Lee and other children like him. Every donation, no matter how small, helps.