Our little Easter miracle

Chef Jean-Christophe Novelli on his baby with cancer

chemotherapy drugs to save his life.

At one point, Valentino was so frail that he weighed just over eight pounds. Michelle spent most days by his side in an isolation ward. Her partner cared for the older boys.

Unbeknown to Michelle, though, the strain of the vigil was affecting her own health, too – and the consequence was another shattering blow for the family. On February 22, she was struck down by a deep-vein thrombosis, a potentially fatal blood clot caused by sitting for long hours in the isolation room.

It struck during one of her rare overnight stays at home, after Jean-Christophe had insisted that she take a break while he stayed at the hospital instead. Michelle recalls: ‘I had the roast dinner JeanChristophe had left for me and fell asleep with the boys.

‘But at 5am I woke up feeling really strange. My leg was sore. At first I assumed it was just because the boys had been sleeping on top of me. But then I looked down and I saw it had swollen to four times its normal size.’

By then the pain was agonising. She staggered into the spare room, where her friend Kerrie Duggan was sleeping, with the now distraught boys following.

‘They were crying and I managed to tell them Mummy needed to get her leg fixed and then she’d be fine,’ she continues.

‘I had no idea how critical things were. It must have been so traumatic for them because I just passed out. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Kerrie said my eyes were rolling back in my head and my lips turned blue. I kept passing out.

‘She called 999 and the ambulance was there in two minutes. If she hadn’t reacted so quickly, I don’t believe that I would be here today.’

Meanwhile, after receiving a panicked text message from Kerrie, Jean-Christophe watched the drama unfold through a CCTV link that could beam live footage to his phone from cameras in the house.

Sitting at Valentino’s bedside, he could only watch helplessly as Michelle was wheeled out to a waiting ambulance and then rushed to Luton and Dunstable Hospital.

‘I tried not to think about the prospect of losing them both,’ he says. ‘I just couldn’t go to that place because it was too painful.

‘It’s only now I realise just how close Michelle came, and it doesn’t bear thinking about. Obviously, I was beside myself.’

Doctors discovered that the clot had formed below Michelle’s knee and had already travelled to her spine. They faced a race against time as it would have killed her within minutes if it reached her heart or lungs.

She was later transferred to St Thomas’ Hospital in London, where doctors pumped her with drugs to break up the clot, which by then was just minutes from travelling to her vital organs.

Michelle is clear that the strain of Valentino’s illness played a major part in her own condition.

‘I got used to keeping everything in, because I felt Valentino could sense when I was upset,’ she says. ‘I think the stress of suppressing my emotions also contributed to my collapse.’

Michelle was told that she needed an operation to widen the veins in her legs to help increase blood flow but this would have meant waiting a week – more time spent away from Valentino.

So with huge bravery, she chose to undergo surgery that same day, but without general anaesthetic.

‘I didn’t hesitate to say yes to the surgery but I could still feel everything and it was the worst pain I have ever experienced. But the whole time I was in hospital, all I could think of was my baby.

‘It’s only now I am beginning to process how close I came to death and I owe Kerrie everything.’

Michelle is now recovering at home with Valentino, who, despite his progress, is not yet out of the woods. The youngster is still only able to feed through a tube in his nose to his stomach and has a Hickman line – a catheter used to administer chemotherapy or other medications – in his heart.

Michelle and Jean-Christophe are concerned that his speech development may have been slowed by the months he could not breastfeed or use a bottle.

Yet they are confident the worst is over, and the pair are full of praise for medical staff who helped at both hospitals.

The chef is now set to tell his parents, Jean, 77, and Monique, 84, who live in France, of the family’s struggles. He says. ‘I know they’ve sensed something is wrong and I will have to tell them at some stage. It would be great to be able to call them with the news Valentino has had the all-clear.

‘He is a real fighter. He’s gone through more than most of us in our lives, but he’s determined to survive. I just have to believe he will be okay.’

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