The Amazing Cancer Kid

Connah Broom has lived with cancer for the last 8 years. His remarkable story – with lessons for everyone who is concerned about cancer and its treatment (especially among children).

The book that tells his story will appear soon. As we are gearing up for the marketing – Connah is about to start secondary school (7 years after the doctors told the family he would be dead within weeks or at most a few months). Here Jim has answered a few questions put to him by a local reporter:

Connah will be starting at Prestatyn High School in Sept and he is really looking forward to it. We are on holiday at the moment and the other day he said only 2 more weeks and I’ll be at High School” So even on holiday he is thinking about it..

No one can say what the future holds for Connah. Nueroblastoma is such a persistent and aggressive disease that we take every day as it comes and only make tentative plans for the future. However we try and be positive for the future and Connah has said that he would like to be a Policeman, he loves watching ” murder mysteries” and always tries to work out ” who did it” before anyone else.

Connah’s overall medical condition is classed as “stable” . However to look at him you would not think that he was ill. His school attendance for last year was 96%. He participates in all school physical activities, has won medals for “Street Dance, Hip Hop and Duet” with Prestatyn Dance Studio, plays football for Prestatyn Athletic Football Team and enjoys swimming, so on the whole although still having a 5cm – 5cm tumour in his stomach he is doing very well. Even though he has never been in ” remission”.

We are really happy that he has reached high school, but we are worried as its a big step and we feel that we will have a lot less contact with him whilst he is there. We have built up a really good rapport with Bodnant Community School the Teachers and staff and thank them very much for all there support and assistance during Connah’s last five years there.

Our motive for writing the book was to inform people of Connah’s story and to highlight how once you start to question what is being done with regards to medical treatment and to research other options the people who you believe are there to help and support you soon turn there backs on you. However our GP has been incredibly supportive to us and we thank him for that.

We want other families to know that whilst there children are being treated in the hospital there are things that they can do to help them through and even reduce some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy. Also there are alternatives to look at rather than giving up to the Doctors final statement ” There is nothing more we can do, just go home and enjoy the time you have left”!

Our motto is “Never Give Up”!

Here is a link to the first news report in his local newspaper http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/health/schoolboy-who-fought-11-tumours-5780540