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Payback time!
By Steven Bowron
ONE of the most terrifying things about illness among children is how quickly it can strike and turn life upside down.
 And not just for the patient, but family and friends too.
One day the kids are healthy and active, the next they’re in hospital on tubes and drips surrounded by
a battery of doctors and nurses. Families are usually too shell-shocked to do anything more
than live moment to moment.
Yet this can also produce inspirational stories of spirit and courage. It doesn’t stop when they make a recovery. Once fit, many throw themselves into fund-raising and campaigning for the hospital that helped them and their family.
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 Ross, Gail and Alex.
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Take Ross Newlands, from Edinburgh’s Gilmerton area, who two years ago was at death’s door with a malignant tumour in his brain.
Life and soul
Now well again, the 15-year-old has bounced back and is drumming up much-needed donations for Edinburgh Sick Kids. Ross reckons he’s helped put an impressive £7000 in the coffers. To raise it, he’s dressed up as Santa and rattled collection buckets at Murrayfield appealing for donations from Scottish and English rugby fans.
The money has helped fund a drop-in centre at the hospital where parents can get expert support and advice about their child’s illness. Since opening last May 300 families have made use of the facility. Yet getting it opened hasn’t been the end of the story as it costs around £180,000 a year to run the centre, which is staffed on evenings and weekends.
That’s one of the reasons Ross is keen to back our appeal. “When I was in hospital they didn’t have the drop-in centre. I wanted to help
because I thought it would be good for other people,” he said.
Until January 2005 Ross had been a typical sports-mad boy, playing football and rugby, until he began to suffer recurring bouts of sickness and complained of constant fatigue.
“It was like a cold that didn’t go away,” says Ross’s mum, Gail. “We went to the doctor who told us it was a chest infection. One weekend Ross was violently sick and his eyes were bulging with large pupils. He had double vision so we took him to the GP again, who referred him to the Western General. They gave him a scan.”
Gail and Ross’s dad, Alex, vividly recall a surgeon using a skull to help explain Ross had fluid on the brain. Then he mentioned the fluid was caused by a “small tumour”.
Tumour
“We were still reeling from hearing the word ‘tumour’ when we were told they’d have to operate that night or he wouldn’t be around in the morning!” says Alex, taking up the tale.
“The tumour covered the pineal gland in the centre of the brain. It produces fluid which cushions the brain and the tumour was stopping it flowing. Instead of being a teaspoonful, enough had built up to fill a juice can. This was what was affecting his eyes and balance.”
Even after the op, Ross was far from out of the woods. Fluid began to build up again so there was another operation to put a tap in
his skull, to which a tube could be attached to filter off excess fluid.
Further surgery was required to insert a box the size of two £2 coins inside his chest. It contained a
valve into his main arteries for the chemotherapy to be administered.
Over 16 weeks Ross had four sessions of chemo. The chemicals were pumped into him for five days and then flushed out on the sixth.
Even though Ross lost weight and his hair fell out he was the life and soul of the ward where, at just 13, he was already the oldest patient.
“He used to say it was a shame about the children who were ill in hospital — forgetting he was
poorly himself,” says Gail.
Radiotherapy
In July 2005, the chemo gave way to radiotherapy, 30 doses over six weeks. This was to burn away the cells around the tumour in case they were cancerous.
Then last August the hospital had a major announcement — Ross was in the clear. While he still has to
go back for blood tests every two months and a big check-up twice a year, the Liberton High pupil is now fully recovered and has just sat eight Standard Grades.
Having spent so long in the hospital, Ross is a popular figure among staff when he returns to
take part in fund-raising events.
“I’ve seen how much good work they do and I just want to give something back,” he says.
“I know this isn’t just happening in Edinburgh but in other hospitals for sick children around Scotland. That’s why it would be fantastic if everyone supported The Sunday Post Sick Children’s Appeal to
help young patients like myself.”
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