HITTING the beach without a care in the world was the perfect way to celebrate for Thomas Warren, his little body is finally free of cancer.
“It’s really nice to see we have been able to get rid of the disease. This offers him some great time ahead, to get back to normal life, and only time will tell what the result will be.”
“It’s awesome,” Thomas said as he made a sandcastle at Rye, Victoria, yesterday.
He was given just a five per cent chance of survival when doctors found a cancer eating away his “moth-eaten” skeleton in 2008.
The four-year-old captured the hearts of Victorians during last year’s Good Friday Appeal as he endured a torturous 74 weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The treatment finally ended in December, and just three days before Christmas Thomas received the best news possible when scans showed the bone and muscle cancer was in remission.
There is always a possibility the cancer could return, so parents Matt and Tracey say now is the time to celebrate.
“It makes your heart warm,” Mr Warren said.
“There had been a few scares along the way so when we were making it towards the end I became confident that we were going to come out all right.
“For the last four weeks of treatment and into this month he has switched on. It’s just like somebody turning up the volume.
“It makes you realise that all things are possible.”
During his cancer battle,Thomas had to be resuscitated twice when his heart rate and blood pressure dropped to almost zero.
When he could barely move and there seemed little hope, Ms Warren talked of her dream that she might one day have to ask him to settle down and relax, just like any other over-active toddler.
She now has her wish.
“He had nothing he could do and just lay in a hospital bed for months on end,” Ms Warren said.
“But now I am exhausted and I can’t keep up with him. He just does not stop from the second his eyes open in the morning until they close at night.”
Mr and Mrs Warren quit their jobs to care for Thomas throughout his cancer fight and exhausted their life savings.
Herald Sun readers opened their hearts to him when they heard of his plight in October, donating $31,000 in a day.
Mr Warren said the support of so many people played a huge part in Thomas’s recovery by allowing him to get the best care possible.
Mr Warren is hoping to soon return to work as a mechanic, but first the family is going on a holiday to Queensland so Thomas can exhaust his newfound energy with brother James and sister Gabby.
Royal Children’s pediatric oncologist Dr Lisa Orme said it was an incredible length of time spent battling a very difficult tumour.
Now go give your kids a big cuddle!
FROM THE HERALD SUN IN AUSTRALIA
