Daily Mail

Another ill boy’s wish granted... by charity that wants YOUR round £1 coins

- By Jane Fryer

WHEN Arjun Lal was given the chance to fulfil his One True Wish earlier this year, his parents Sumathy and Narrinder did their best to help him choose something brilliant.

How about a family holiday in Europe, or a trip to Disney World, or a holiday in Lapland to see Father Christmas? ‘No thanks,’ said Arjun. ‘He just wasn’t interested,’ says Sumathy, 31. Of course he wasn’t. He was just four years old, but he’d wanted to drive a train for as long as he could remember.

He loved trains and knew everything about them. His passion had sustained him through endless hospital appointmen­ts, ultra sounds, MRI scans, biopsies, an operation to remove his cancerous right eye and his daily life living with autism.

As well as hundreds of hours spent looking at pictures of trains, playing with trains and researchin­g trains, he’d spent an awful lot of time on them, travelling from home in Letchworth Garden City to hospital appointmen­ts in London.

So he asked for a day driving a Virgin Train. And that’s what he got. His dream day was brought to him by the charity Make-A-Wish Foundation UK which arranges incredible experience­s for very ill youngsters.

Now the Mail is asking readers to donate their old pound coins – which ceased to be legal tender this week – to our Quids for Kids appeal and make more magical dreams come true, arranged through Make-A-Wish, for seriously ill children like Arjun this Christmas.

Arjun was born on September 11, 2012. He was a miracle baby. After seven years of trying, his parents had almost given up hope of having a child.

‘He was perfect,’ says Sumathy. ‘I couldn’t believe we finally had our child.’

Two weeks later, she noticed something was wrong. The sclera, or white of Arjun’s right eye was speckled with black. She waved her hands in front of his eye. Nothing.

And there began a nightmaris­h conveyor belt of medical appointmen­ts and investigat­ions that went on for months as first GPs and then ophthalmol­ogists and oncologist­s struggled to diagnose Arjun. ‘He was in so much pain, but they couldn’t get to the bottom of it,’ says Sumathy. Finally they ended up in Moorfields Eye Hospital where his cancerous right eye was removed – on his first birthday.

Surgeons broke the news that he was suffering from something called dark blue neavi arising from choroidal melanoma.

‘It’s so rare, I couldn’t even Google it,’ says Sumathy. Although Arjun made a good recovery from surgery, his future is uncertain.

‘Once this cancer has been in our bodies, it can become active at any time,’ says Sumathy. ‘And when it does, it will spread and that will be it.’ She added that Arjun ‘knows there are bugs in his body, but they are sleeping at the moment’.

It is a very dark cloud under which to live, particular­ly for a little boy who has battled so very hard all his short life. Which is where Make A Wish came in – to give a once in a lifetime treat – tailor-made for a train-mad boy.

‘It fuelled him,’ said Narrinder, 48. ‘It changed everything. He was so excited he talked about it constantly.’ It was everything Arjun had dreamt of. All the way down the Virgin East Coast line to London, he sounded the horn, adjusted signals, helped drive the train and guided it right up to the buffers in London. Next, he had a go in the train simulator at King’s Cross – where the drivers do their training, before being whisked off for a VIP tour of the London Transport Museum.

‘He was so, so happy,’ says Sumathy. ‘We kept thinking, “You deserve this Arjun, after everything you’ve been through”.’

They all did. When Arjun was diagnosed, Sumathy felt isolated. ‘I felt so alone I found myself talking to the Samaritans,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know where to find the strength.’ But she did. They all did – particular­ly Arjun.

It is humbling to learn just how well he is doing. He’s barely five but can already read and write. He is thriving at school, plays football, loves pizza, corn on the cob and porridge, but most of all, trains.

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