Jay Harmer 13/8/1998 - 29/6/2018

Jay started getting temperatures and pain in his right shoulder from the age of twelve. For two years I took him back and forth to G.P.s  but each one thought Jay was simply spending too much time on his P.C.  I took on extra work to pay for muscle manipulation, his sister and I gave him massages, the G.P. referred him to physio but nothing seemed to help, in fact he just got worse. Eventually one G.P. a new one actually, threw his hands up in the air and reffered him to a pediatrician. Hallelujah! Unfortunately he decided that there was nothing wrong with Jay, he was a teenager and sometimes they have little blips like this. Fortunately though, he gave Jay an appointment for an x-ray, as an after thought, just in case. Well thank goodness he did!  Jay had a whopping great big tumour coming from his rib cage that, in the x-ray, covered most of his right lung! Moving on a bit (you don't need to hear about the quiet room and all that) of course I stayed with Jay and we were rushed to St.Georges in Tooting where Jay had lots of tests and scans and two weeks later we were given the diagnoses of Ewings, teenage bone cancer...a solid tumour. We had the weekend at home and then went to The Royal Marsden to start an intense regime of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Again, the details you don't want to know. Eighteen months later a scan showed the tumour was regrowing. This time they decided to operate. We spent three weeks in The Royal Brompton where surgeons spent fourteen hours untangling and removing this tumour from his nerves and bones. The result was that they had to take out 5 ribs and two lobes of his lung, which they sort of replaced with mesh and bone cement. He was left with slightly lowered breathing ability, slightly less mobility in his right arm but he fought on and kept his brilliant sense of humour. About eighteen months later he gets the same pain and fever but in his kidney. To cut a long story short we went to A&E. He had something on his kidney and was sent home with the recommendation we speak to his Oncologist and was given anti-biotics. Everyone knew what was coming and a biopsy appointment in London was being arranged but before then we were back in A&E.  Jay has Sepsis...pneumonia. I won't go into those details either. We spend a week or so in our local hospital before being transported to The Royal Marsden. We spend a week there before ending up in C.C.U. (Critical Care Unit) London because of the lung infection. Eventually we get sent back to The Royal Marsden in Sutton (our second home) and after a short time Jay is diagnosed again with Ewings in his right kidney. Jay hasn't been home yet and has been in hospital now for nine weeks as he undergoes chemotherapy again. As far as we know chemotherapy will continue for six months, after that we don't know. We as a family can and are providing Jay with emotional, psychological and physical support...what we are seriously lacking are the funds to get Jay through this (naturally I gave up my job to be with Jay) and we really need them now. Thank you for anything you are able to give...we very much appreciate it. Samantha & Jay