‘He’s done so well’ - Boy with cancer coming home after pioneering treatment
Harry Addy with two of his sisters who visited for the last five days of his treatment. Pictures: Melanie Addy - Credit: Archant
A nine-year-old boy with cancer and his family are coming home after spending Christmas and the New Year in hospital.
Harry Addy, from Rivermead, Stalham, has undergone pioneering proton therapy treatment at the Christie Hospital in Manchester.
The brave youngster spent six weeks in hospital and his mother Melanie Wymer said he had his last treatment on Wednesday, February 5.
She said: "He's done so well. It's been very difficult, as he has lost all his hair, which is always a big thing for a nine-year-old.
"His back is sore from where the treatment goes in.
"He spent the first week being sick, a lot. And the treatment has left him very tired, which will last for quite a while.
"There are likely to be a few different side effects in the next 12 months. But we will have an MRI scan in six weeks to check what the protons have done. And hopefully it will have stopped the tumour growing."
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Harry started treatment on December 30. As it's the longest treatment the hospital carries out, he had to have a daily general anaesthetic as he could not keep still for two hours.
Mrs Wymer said Harry had been very nervous and scared before the treatment started, but the hospital staff had been lovely.
Prior to treatment he had been struggling physically and emotionally after four years of surgeries and different chemotherapies. He had also just finished an 18 month-long stint of weekly chemotherapy.
The family received more than 300 cards and packages ahead of their trip to hospital. Harry loves opening cards and gifts so his mother asked well-wishers to send him a little card, note or gift to take with them.
Harry has a cancerous 'pilocytic astrocytoma' spinal cord tumour, which he's been battling since December 2015.
He also has leptomeningeal disease in his brain - a rare complication of his cancer in which the disease spreads to the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
Proton therapy is a type of radiotherapy said to pinpoint tumours with better accuracy while reducing collateral damage to other organs.
