Somerset family's plea after five-year-old's 'limp' turns out to be rare childhood cancer
ITV West Country reporter Richard Payne speaks to the family of five-year-old Jack
The Somerset family of a five-year-old boy diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer say they have a desperate race against time to try to raise £250,000 for treatment which could save his life.Jack Gyde, from Burnham-on-Sea, has stage four neuroblastoma. He's undergoing chemotherapy on the NHS but without 10 rounds of a potentially lifesaving vaccine only available in America his chances of survival are dramatically reduced.
A fundraising page has topped £20,000 in just a few weeks, but a huge charitable effort is underway to hit target if he's to make it to the US after a year's treatment with the NHS.
It's been a huge shock to the family who until January were living a normal, happy life which included Jack starting school.His mum, Sarah Mackey, explains: "One day I started to notice he was limping a bit and I let it go on for a couple of days.
"(Then I) took him to the doctor's, they said it was an infection so he got a blood test in the end in A&E and that result got us sent to Bristol and it was another two weeks to get the diagnosis."Which was that experts had detected a tennis ball-sized tumour above his right kidney."He just gets on with it at the moment," adds dad, Ben Gyde. "He has his good days and bad days but for the most part he's still pretty normal."What's fast becoming normal are hospital trips every 10 days for seven rounds of chemotherapy.
If it works well, the tumour will be removed but that's just the start. A stem cell transplant, radiotherapy and immunotherapy will follow if each stage works.It means his first day at school has been one of his only ones. Visiting soft play and even going to the park is on hold.Dr Kate Wheeler, of Neuroblastoma UK, explains: "High risk neuroblastoma is still a really difficult disease to treat successfully in everybody.
"Improvements have been made but we still need to have new, innovative treatments with an aim to cure everybody who gets high risk neuroblastoma."If reached, the money will to pay for 10 rounds of a vaccine only available in the US and only if Jack is in remission.
Ben says the treatment would reduce the chance of relapse and if Jack does relapse it increases his chances of survival.Sarah adds: "I'd often read about children going through the same sort of things but you never assume it's going to be your family, so it's been a lot to adjust to.
“We won’t give up, whatever happens in the future we need to be able to say we did everything we possibly could.
“If, for some reason we couldn’t go to America or didn’t reach the target, the money will go towards Jack’s long term care and we would help with the costs for another child who is fundraising for the same treatment.”