**FUNDS REMOVED TO DONATE EARLY IN LIGHT OF COVID 19 IMPACT ON CHARITIES IN PARTICULAR BRAIN TUMOUR RESEARCH**

**UPDATE WILL BE PLACED HERE ONCE CONFIRMATION OF FUNDS REMOVED (AFTER FEES) AND WHERE MONEY HAS BEEN ALLOCATED**

WE ARE STILL AIMING FOR 20K - - - - - 12.8K TO GO! :) thank you everyone LC

Once upon a time, 45 people decided to walk 100km to help raise awareness and money for all the things important to Team Charlie Cox.

Magical Taxi Tours - We're hoping to sponsor x2 taxis for their next trip to Disneyland Paris for poorly children.

Brain Tumour Research - We'll be working with Brain Tumour Research to focus our funds raised on children with brain tumours.

The Royal Marsden Hospital - Where Charlie has his chemo. We'll be speaking to the hospital to agree how best we can support them financially with additional funds raised.

(there may be a small amount of this total put towards cost of the trip but everyone has paid a £30 entry fee and we will do our best to keep the costs within that budget - any costs will be posted here for transparency)

**UPDATE**

Read about Charlie's full journey below!

Charlie Cox was diagnosed with an Oligoastrocytoma grade 2 brain tumour in February 2012 when he was just eight months old after suffering from seizures. On 3rd May 2012, at 11 months old, Charlie had an operation at St. George’s Hospital, Tooting, to remove the tumour that was in the right hippocampus region. After eight hours in surgery, he was moved to intensive care and the consultant confirmed that the operation went very well. Charlie’s MRI scan results were positive and showed that the tumour had been removed and Charlie was slowly weaned off of the anti-seizure medication.

After Charlie having MRI scans every 6-12 months to check the growth of the tumour, a scan in April 2014 had shown that the tumour had grown again.

The consultant said that there are three options to remove it/stop it growing, 1. To operate again, 2. Radiotherapy - but can be harmful to Charlie's developing brain at his age, 3. Chemotherapy.

Charlie's neurologist consultant had a meeting with oncologists from the Royal Mardsen Hospital and decided it wasn't necessary to operate at this stage but wasn't ruling out another operation in the future. So the decision was made for Charlie to have an 18 month course of chemotherapy which started in June 2014.

It was 13th January 2016 when Charlie finished his chemo after 43 cycles over an 82-week period. He had an MRI in February and again at the beginning of May to check that all was well.

A scan in September 2016 showed that the tumour began to grow again. Both the neurologist and oncologist discussed the best treatment for Charlie and they decided to operate again. The operation was on 3rd November, after six hours in surgery and removing more of Charlie’s brain. The surgeons were hopeful they had removed it all this time.

Charlie recovered well after the operation in 2016, many MRI scans confirmed that the tumour was gone and had stayed away for the longest time since he was diagnosed. Unfortunately, Charlie relapsed again in July 2019 with the latest scan showing the tumour had returned. Consultants agreed that it was too risky to operate at this stage due to the tumour being in the optic chiasm of the brain. Ideally, the consultant would like Charlie to have radiotherapy or proton beam therapy to blast the tumour away, but at the age of eight there are too many risks, i.e. stroke and secondary tumours. It was decided that Charlie would start chemotherapy treatment again for one year. He started in July 2019 and is well. The MRI scan in November 2019 confirmed that the tumour has, in the words of Charlie’s consultant, ‘debulked’ and he will continue chemotherapy as planned. The next MRI scan is February 2020.

#TEAMCHARLIE