We need as much help as we can get to fund life-saving Proton Beam Therapy for our Daughter Bodie. You can read Bodie’s story below:

A few days after Christmas 2016, Bodie was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of 10 months after 6 trips to our local A&E department and GP within a 4 week period. Bodie started with symptoms of sickness and constant tiredness which rapidly progressed into her losing the ability to crawl, sit up or even support her own head. The 6th time we arrived at our local A&E department a locum doctor checked the reflexes in her legs and suggested we get an ultrasound of her brain. This revealed ‘an abnormality’ and we were transferred by ambulance to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, who then rushed her for an MRI scan and told us the heart-breaking news the next morning that she had a brain tumour big enough to occupy one fifth of her skull.

Bodie’s first surgery was on New Year’s Eve to relieve pressure in her skull and 4 days later she had further brain surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible. Sadly after 9 hours the Neurosurgeons could only manage to safely remove approximately half of the tumour. Two weeks after the surgery we were given Bodie’s official Cancer diagnosis, she has a Grade 3 Anaplastic Posterior Fossa Ependymoma. Bodie has endured 12 months of Chemotherapy which has worked far better than her Consultant had previously thought it would, she has also had 2 further surgeries in February 2018. The small remainder of the tumour is inoperable as it is in her brain stem.

Bodie is now 2 years old and for the past 2 months we were on track for Proton Beam Therapy which we were confident would be funded by the NHS. However her most recent MRI scan has shown a previously unnoticed mass within her brain stem, this new discovery is part of the original tumour and not new growth and means her tumour now exceeds the size requirements for NHS funding by a few millimetres. We are now faced with the agonising choice of having to self fund life-saving Proton Beam Therapy not currently available in the UK, or give her conventional Photon Radiotherapy which we believe would cause more long term damage to Bodie as it also hits healthy brain tissue, this can be avoided with targeted Proton Beam Therapy.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read Bodie’s story, if you can help us in any way it would give Bodie a better chance at beating her Cancer and living a full life.