Brave Alex takes first steps
Amazing moment for boy with grapefruit-sized cysts
A BOY with cysts the size of a grapefruit on his face has defied all the odds to take his first steps independently.
Alex Grabowski, four, was born with cystic hygroma – a collection of fluid-filled sacs – on his face and in his airways.
The weight of the growths make it hard for him to balance.
But after eight gruelling eighthour operations at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, the brave youngster can now walk without outside support.
Alex’s mum Emily said he has come on in “leaps and bounds” since the debulking surgery to reduce the size of his cysts.
His speech is also starting to improve and after saying his first word – “bubbles” – Alex is now starting to form sentences.
While the youngster still needs a tracheostomy to help him breathe and is fed via a tube, it is thought that one day he will be able to have it removed and live even more independently.
Mum Emily, 35, said: “We don’t know what the future will hold, but I can only hope.
Alex has already come on in leaps and bounds. We still sign with him but Alex is starting to talk better, too. He’s very good at getting his point across. Caring for him is hard work but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Emily first found out Alex had cystic hygroma at her 20-week scan and admits that she was “scared” about what her unborn baby would look like.
But when little Alex was born in January 2017, at St Michael’s hospital in Bristol, Emily “thought he was gorgeous and burst into tears”.
Alex spent the first six months of his life at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, where he underwent his first few rounds of debulking operations.
Single mum Emily also had to be trained in how to care for her son before she could bring him home to the town of
Midsomer Norton in Somerset. Emily, who is also mum to Roman, eight, said: “It was very daunting, bringing him home. It was suddenly just me who had to look after him.
“I had to get used to going places with all of his equipment.”
While there are many unknowns about Alex’s condition and he will probably always need treatment, Emily says his prognosis is good.
But sending him off for debulking operations never gets any easier.
Emily said: “I cry every time he goes for a surgery.
“They take eight hours so it is a long wait. One of his cysts is over a nerve that could paralyse his face if they hit it so they have to be really careful.”
Emily, who has been supported by the Rainbow Trust, Jessie May and Children’s Hospice South West charities, also worries about
IN WOMB Baby scan what people will say about Alex as he grows older.
“Most people are lovely, but there have been some nasty comments,” she said.
“People have told me he looks scary and one man came up to me and asked if he was real.
“I am worried about him having to deal with it by himself when he is older but I love Alex. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
There have been nasty comments. People say he’s scary EMILY GRABOWSKI ON ABUSE OF SON ALEX