Kellie, Euan's mother, shares his story
Euan’s story began in March 2003 when his reception class teacher telephoned to say he was holding his right arm in a strange way. Being a nurse I took him to the hospital where I worked and asked them for an x-ray. A colleague had the difficult task of telling me she thought he had Ewing sarcoma. He was four years old.
We were incredibly lucky, the radiographer had spotted it, and the consultant orthopedic surgeon we saw referred us immediately to the Royal Orthopedic Hospital in Birmingham. We were there the next day and the diagnosis was confirmed 2 weeks later. Euan began an intensive chemotherapy regime, which saw him lose not only his hair, but also his finger nails and toe nails too.
6 months later we had the difficult decision over which surgery we were going to choose. Euan had had good results from the chemo and had no evidence of spread, so we decided to go for a radical amputation in order to improve his chance of survival. He coped brilliantly with the surgery which was one of the most difficult decisions a parent can make.
Euan is now nearly 10 years old, his disability irritates him sometimes but he is aware that without treatment he would not be with us. He was so young at the time of diagnosis that we had to make so many decisions on his behalf and I hope that we have made the right ones.
We were lucky that he was treated by Professor Eden's team at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and we received (and still do receive) excellent care from them. I wanted to say that post-Ewing's Euan is the positive, bright, happy, articulate child he would always have been and that while his illness has defined the early part of his life, he is not defined by his disability and fully intends to do everything he wants to with his life. There is a life after cancer and treatment and I hope that Euan's story will help to show others there is light at the end of a dark, difficult tunnel.
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