Christopher, or Kip as we all called him, came into this world on his due date, 25th April 1998. He was a perfect baby, so easy and contented and he grew into a lovely, loving, affectionate toddler. Everyone who met him said what a special little boy he was.

Christopher was a normal healthy happy little boy, or so we thought. We weren't aware of any problems until January 2001 when he started having asbsences or seizures - he was two years old. He was given medication and the seizures stopped much to our relief.

It wasn't until towards the end of March that he became really unwell, complaining of a headache, vomiting and being really drowsy and uninterested in his toys.

After a short stay in hospital and a CT scan it was discovered that he had a large brain tumour and needed immediate surgery. He was transferred by ambulance to Birmingham Children's Hospital and on 31st March 2001 he underwent an 8 hour operation to remove the tumour.

It was decided that he should start chemotherapy shortly after the surgery and he had chemo every 3 weeks which usually involved a stay in hospital for up to 4 days at a time.

Even though he was having chemotherapy he was amazingly well. He wasn't ill from the chemo and was a happy active child and was back at playgroup and doing all the activities that a normal 3 year old would do.

Most of his chemotherapy was given at Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry as it is much closer to where we live and there was such a shortage of beds at Birmingham Children's Hospital. There's nothing worse than getting yourself ready both physically and emotionally for a stay in hospital only to be told that there is no bed available!

We had a lovely summer with him and a fab family holiday in the August at the caravan in Devon provided by the Children's Hospital - the picture below right was taken on that holiday.

Sadly in October he started to show signs of being unwell again and after a short stay in our local hospital and then a trip back to Birmingham, a scan revealed that the tumour was back. Our hearts sank. He'd been so well - we really thought he was going to beat it.

This time it was more complicated. After the surgery to remove the tumour they left a drain tube in Christopher's head which was attached to a bag so that excess brain fluid could drain into it until the swelling went down. The drain was in for about 3 weeks and had several problems including a severe infection that sent Christopher's temperature soaring to over 40° and he had to have antibiotics injected into the drain straight into his brain fluid to try to combat the infection. It also had to be resited as it was leaking which meant another trip to theatre.

There was more bad news because after all this they then decided that they hadn't managed to remove all the tumour and so needed to operate again. That was a dreadful time and we really felt like he, and we, couldn't take anymore.

The surgery went well and the they put an internal drain (a shunt) inside Christopher's head and down into his tummy so that the excess fluid could drain in a similar way to the external drain.

Sadly there were several problems with the new shunt and at one stage my poor baby was having to go back to theatre almost once a week to have the shunt unblocked - this happened about 4 or 5 times until they modified the shunt so that it wouldn't block again. We finally managed to get home (bearing in mind we'd been in hospital almost contantly since October) on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas at home but sadly had to go back boxing day afternoon as he wasn't well at all.