A friend made this for me. It's lovely seeing all of my children together x x

Christopher would be sitting his GCSE's this year and possibly leaving school. It's been hard for me invigilating the exams knowing he should have been there and seeing some of the friends he went to school and Church with.
I miss him every day. I never thought that was possible. I thought that maybe the odd one or two days pass without thinking of your loved one but it's not so. I can honestly say that I've thought about him every single day in the last 12 years.
I got upset on Katherine's birthday when she was out with her boyfriend Alex and her brother Matt was there too with his girlfriend Mollie. I thought how sad it was that Christopher wasn't there with them celebrating. I know that there will be lots of occasions my whole life like this, some will affect me more than others.
I was talking to Andy about it today and he said 'well he's having much more fun where he is'. It's true I know, I believe that he's happy and safe in heaven but it doesn't stop the pain of missing him.

I love this. It was taken at Birmingham Children's Hospital

So here we are, 12 years on since he was diagnosed and we were waiting for his surgery..... where does the time go? I don't think my memories have faded at all, that day was horrible.... my poor boy was starving, he just wanted something to eat and we had to keep refusing him because they kept scheduling his operation and then cancelling it. When we finally allowed him to eat, they turned up to fetch him for theatre but he couldn't go because we'd fed him.......

I can't believe he'd be 15 next month. He'd be studying for his GCSE's. Probably really tall, his voice broken and maybe even a girlfriend.

I was driving through town the other day and stopped at the traffic lights and it suddenly hit me how he'd been robbed of life.... all the experiences that life holds. It took me all my strength to hold it together.

I'll never make sense of what happened. It all seems such a horrible and pointless waste of life to me. I'll never get over losing him - as long as I live. I miss him every day......

It's 8 years today since Christopher underwent his first operation. It lasted 8 hours and was a very anxious day.

Dates always stay in my mind and even though it was several years ago it seems like only last week and I can recall almost all the events of that day and many other days.

I was just sitting here wondering if he would have had the same musical talent as Katherine and Matthew. I was trying to imagine what it would be like if they played together, whether he could sing or play an instrument.

We'll never know the answer to that. Things could have been so very different if only that bloody awful disease hadn't got the better of him.

How I HATE cancer.

Sarah

8 years ago yesterday Christopher was diagnosed. I could almost recount every minute of that day in detail - it's etched in my memory forever.

8 years ago today we spent all day waiting for an operation that never happened. It was cancelled 3 times. It was an horrendous day - starving him, trying to pacify him, waiting for them to come and collect him only to have it called off at the last minute. He was so poorly and we could see him deteriorating.

He finally went to theatre at 9am on 31st March and had an 8 hour operation. He came round really quickly and you'd never have believed what he had just endured.

I miss him so much.

Sarah

After our fantastic trip to Lapland, sadly, the next day, Christopher ended up back in the hospital with a blocked shunt and from then until Christmas he was in and out of hospital with shunt problems.

We finally managed to get home on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. With the help of family and friends I'd managed to do the Christmas shopping so was fairly organised.

Christmas day was lovely and although Christopher wasn't well he seemed to enjoy the day. There is a picture below of him playing with Katherine Christmas day afternoon.

Boxing day was a different story and in the afternoon I dashed back to the hospital with him as he wasn't well at all. I remember having to stop my car on the hard shoulder of the M6 to hold a bowl for Christopher to be sick in. Poor little mite.

Because of the continuing problems with the shunt blocking, the surgeon decided to modify a shunt to try to avoid any further blockages and to enable us to get home for Christmas they had to insert a needle into one of the many holes in Christopher's head and draw some fluid off to try to keep the pressure down - this did the trick but then it seemed the poor little chap was suffering from low pressure and the effects were quite similar to too much pressure but not as serious. He was feeling tired, very strange and sick.

The fluid that was drawn off was sent off for analysis and when the results came back it was discovered that there were cancer cells floating about. To be honest that didn't surprise me at all given his condition and although the cells were dead ones there was some talk at the time of whether they needed to give Christopher some chemotherapy into his spine as obviously the brain and spine fluid are one and the same and there was a change of the cells settling in his spine and spreading. Anyway for whatever reason they decided against doing this.

January saw the start of radiotherapy. We were told that we had to be at the Queen Elizabeth hospital at 8am 5 days a week for the treatment and the reason we had to be there so early was because each morning Christopher had to have a general anaesthetic (GA). The reason for the daily GA was because radiotherapy on the brain is very dangerous and had to be done in exactly the right place and it was too much and too scary to expect a 3 year old boy to keep perfectly still for the treatment. Especially as he had to wear a plastic mask that came in two halves - one fitted on the front of his head covering his face and the other half on the back - a bit like the man in the iron mask. The reason for the mask was that they could mark it to show where to point the radiowaves.

I didn't know how we were going to manage to do a 70 mile round trip every single day from home and get there so early and it was then that someone suggested contacting Edward House to see if they could accommodate us. They said yes and for the next 6 weeks that was our home from Monday to Friday and we would travel home on Friday afternoon and return Sunday evening.

The radiotherapy went well and even though Christoper had a GA every day he coped really well with it. He was a bit miserable sometimes when he came round but we used to have a nice treat ready for him when he woke up, although by this time he had a feeding tube as his appetite was almost zero as all the treatment had taken it's toll on him.

I used to give him his 'feed' each night while he slept but due to the fact he was having a GA every day I had to set my alarm to wake up to turn off the feed at around 2am every morning so that his tummy was empty for the anaesthetic.

One fantastic thing that we did get to do in between hospital stays and surgeries was to go on a trip with the charity 'When You Wish Upon a Star' and on 19th December 2001, after lots of prayers and near-misses, we went to Lapland for the day!

It was a very exiciting time as none of us had ever even been on an plane before and we all had to apply for passports!

Unusually the charity paid for all 5 of us to go, normally it's just for one parent and the sick child, but they said due to our circumstances and how ill Christopher was they would pay for us all to go which was wonderful as I really don't think I could have gone and left Katherine and Matthew at home on such a special day out.

My Mum also desparately wanted to go so she made a donation to the charity to cover the cost of her place and she came with us!

We set off very early in the morning and as an added surprise - Jeremy Spake from the BBC TV series 'Airport' came with us and also the Pop Idol winners 'Hear'say'. Katherine was so very excited as we'd followed the Pop Idol series on the TV and she couldn't believe that she got to meet them in the flesh!

It was a very long but very magical day, we all got to meet the 'real' santa and it's something we'll never forget.

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.