Help Joseph 'Hulk Smash' Cancer

Thank you so much for your support. Please note that Joseph's campaign has moved to Solving Kids' Cancer (solvingkidscancer.org.uk)

Josephs Campaign can now be found here 

Christmas Day 2020 and 2-year-old Joseph woke up full of excitement and energy to see what Father Christmas had brought him. He bounced down the stairs, wide eyes and laughing with glee as he ripped open his Christmas gifts and later that day ran around the garden playing with his new ride on truck. A few weeks later, he enjoyed a day sledging on the edge of the Black Mountain. He was a healthy, energetic two-year-old boy with absolutely no sign of illness. However, not that long after Christmas Joseph began to refuse his meals and shortly after his 3rd birthday in February, his energy levels dropped. We had concerns about him, but honestly thought that it was habit picked up due to the lockdown. He was snacking a bit more because he was home all day, was that stopping him from eating dinner? Were his energy levels lower because he had been stuck at home for months on end? He had lost a little bit of weight, but it coincided with a growth spurt, so it was easy to put it down to that.

However, it was just before Easter when Joseph became unwell with a virus and we will never ever forget how unwell our little boy looked that day. He was grey, with black rings under his eyes, he could barely stand, he was crying in pain - it happened so quickly. Aside from the appetite and energy levels, it feels like it just came from nowhere.

Joseph was taken to our local hospital and it was there that the doctors found a lump and that he had low blood platelets. After weeks of tests and full body scans, he was transferred to Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital in Cardiff where bone marrow biopsy and further scans revealed that it was cancer. There were tumours on the adrenal gland, in his stomach, lymphatic system and bone marrow. Joseph was officially diagnosed with stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma in March 2021, at just 3 years and 2 months old.

As with more than half of children diagnosed with neuroblastoma, the cancer had spread throughout Joseph’s body by the time he was diagnosed, making his condition one of the most difficult kinds of childhood cancer to treat. It is an aggressive childhood cancer that has a 40-50% chance of long-term survival at diagnosis.

Joseph’s family are fundraising for further treatment, either to get their son into remission (disease free) or to try and keep the cancer away if his frontline treatment does go to plan. This could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
As Joseph's aunt, I also wanted to set up a page to not only help raise money towards a potentially expensive treatment pathway, but also to do something to help my sister and her family with the vast amount of expenses that they are now facing.