Archie’s Story

Its very kind of all the families who stay with us that are happy to share their difficult journeys. All charities are find it hard to raise funds at the moment so to actually hear from the families we support we believe gives confidence to our donors as to where we are helping families from all over the UK. Thank you.

Here is Archie’s journey

It started in October 2024. He had had a cough over the summer holidays that just wasn’t properly leaving him, he wasn’t particularly un well with it, he was still playing his beloved rugby and cricket but the severity of the cough would make him sick every now and again and so we took him to the drs in September.

He was diagnosed with Asthma. It was not asthma. I begged for blood tests but they said he didn’t need one until he became really poorly on October 12th, he was pale, sick, tired and had no appetite-

They eventually agreed to send him to hospital for a same day blood test. It all became very serious very quickly at the hospital and an oncology dr walked in and told me the worst news we’ve ever had as parents.

Our beautiful, 10 year old boy had blood cancer and was likely to be in the most advanced stages.

We were then blue lighted away for nearly 5 weeks to BCH, scared, missing our family.

Archie had stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and Nephrotic syndrome due to the late stages of his illness. He was filling up with fluid and was consistently sick with anything he tried to eat or drink, even doing a biopsy was considered dangerous at this point because they were unable to lie him down flat due to the possibility of the fluid entering his lungs.

He would require 6 rounds of intense chemotherapy (and possible radiotherapy) which would consist of many 9- 12 hour days, 5 days of the week for two weeks and then a two week break.
Archie tolerated chemotherapy relatively well apart from painful sores in his mouth, extreme fatigue and leg pains which left him
unable to walk most of the time.

We were getting through it one day at a time until Christmas Day 2024 when Archie developed Neutropenic sepsis and fell unconscious at home whilst waiting for the ambulance in which he was then blue lighted to hospital for second time.

I spent Christmas Day is rhesus watching them try to save my sons life whilst my husband and 3 other children waited for news at home.

All we’d wanted for him as parents after his diagnosis was for him to have a great Christmas (it was his favourite time of year) and we felt like total failures because he was going through all of this and we couldn’t even make sure he had the best Christmas Day 😞

Archie was a real tough cookie as all of these wonderful kids are and he eventually continued his treatment when his blood results and heart sca results were acceptable enough after a big delay and he is currently doing reasonably well.

He still suffers with aches and pains, tiredness and a feeling that he doesn’t yet fit in with his friends in terms of his fitness levels and abilities but he’s returned to school and continues to try his best each day.

We are truly grateful to the Ben Saunders Foundation for this incredible break away