Boy, 6, given 5 per cent chance of surviving brain cancer taking life day-by-day after operation
06.04.2022 - 22:03
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A six-year-old boy who started to become unwell at the start of the first coronavirus lockdown is taking life day-by-day after having a brain tumour removed in a 10-hour operation.
Aaron Wharton went through an initial period of vomiting regularly, along with struggling with his balance, before his parents took him to hospital in March 2020.
Doctors found a significant growth on the four-year-old child's head following an MRI scan, and it was then that he was diagnosed with a grade three brain tumour.
His mum Nicola said: “They confirmed that Aaron would need an operation. Within 48 hours of learning that he had a tumour, he was on the operating table.”
Aaron, from Buckley in Flintshire, then underwent a 10-hour surgery to remove the tumour at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, according to North Wales Live.
Following the operation Aaron lost the ability to speak, swallow and eat due to fluid on the brain, Wales Online reports.
Nicola said: “Due to Covid restrictions, only one of us could be there with Aaron at any time. My husband and I were like ships in the night. It was very, very hard.”
After a round of proton radiotherapy at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, Aaron was well enough to start school in September 2020.
Sadly, he relapsed in June 2021 and was rushed back to hospital for another 12-hour surgery. The family were told Aaron had just a 5% chance of surviving his cancer.
He will undergo another cycle of chemotherapy treatment this year, after which he will be monitored indefinitely in case the tumour returns. “It’s a very uncertain future,” admitted Nicola.
“This type of cancer is very unpredictable. We just try to make every day count and make Aaron as happy as can be.”
In January