Real Life they told us Ashya wouldn’t survive… Look at him now
His parents were jailed for abducting their son from a hospital that refused him pioneering treatment he then had abroad. Today, he’s cancer-free...
When Brett King read the letter from a leading child cancer specialist after his eight-year-old son ashya’s most recent brain scan, he sobbed. ‘Dear mr King, I have reviewed ashya’s MRI scans with our radiologists. I am pleased to say there is no sign of any tumour recurrences and there is nothing that requires any urgent interventions.’ The letter ended with associate professor and consultant in paediatric oncology Dr Juliet Gray’s best wishes that ‘ashya continues to make such good progress’.
Finally, after three tumultuous years, the Kings felt they had been vindicated. ‘My wife said to me, “It’s all OK now. There is no need to cry.” But there were so many emotions: happiness, relief. I can’t put it into words.’
In August 2014, Brett and his wife Naghmeh triggered an international manhunt after they took Ashya, then aged five and suffering from a rare brain tumour, from Southampton General Hospital without doctors’ consent in order to seek pioneering proton treatment in Europe. They feared chemotherapy and conventional radiotherapy he was about to receive in Britain for his particularly aggressive tumour, a medulloblastoma, would at best plunge him into a semi-vegetative state. At worst, it would kill him.
On the run
His best chance, they argued, was proton beam treatment, which wasn’t then offered in Britain. It aims radiotherapy directly at a cancer, minimising damage to surrounding brain cells. Doctors in Southampton vehemently disagreed, insisting the couple were putting their son’s life at risk. After two days on the run, the Kings were arrested in Malaga, Spain, where they had an apartment, and thrown in jail in Madrid for 72 hours, accused of child cruelty. Ashya, one of seven children, was placed under armed guard in a Spanish hospital, where he howled with despair and confusion.
Following an international outcry, the Kings were finally released. On 5 September 2014, a High Court judge granted them the right to take Ashya to Prague, which had a world-renowned
‘they Were thrown in jail’
‘the years have taken their TOLL’
medical hospital specialising in proton therapy. But British doctors maintained they had reduced their son’s chances of survival by 30%. Today, Ashya attends a school near his family home full-time. He plays football, rides a bike and chatters away.
Full of life
In short, aside from a barely perceptible weakness in his right side — a side-effect of the brain surgery he underwent in Southampton before receiving his proton treatment — he’s much like any other eight-year-old boy, albeit a particularly gentle-natured one.
‘He’s probably the happiest he’s been since he was diagnosed,’ says Brett. ‘He’s so full of life. When people think of Ashya they remember a sick little boy in a bed, but he’s not that boy anymore.’
The intervening years have taken their toll, though — not only on the Kings’ belief in their judgement, but also their 30-year marriage. For while a scan at a hospital in Malaga, where Ashya received all his follow-up treatment, declared him tumour-free in March 2015, tumours can return for up to three years. His ninth scan, scheduled for last May, was the most symbolic for the Kings.
‘The hardest thing was knowing if there was a regrowth, I had no one to blame but myself,’ says Brett, who acknowledges that while most parents trust doctors to deal with their child the way they feel best, he and his wife played an active role in Ashya’s treatment. The scan, however, was not the good news they’d prayed for. Spanish doctors detected a cluster of abnormal blood vessels shaped much like a small raspberry.
Such was the aggressive nature of Ashya’s grade-four tumour that Brett knew, should it return, there would be no cure. ‘The doctors told us nobody knows why it comes back. We try to live a healthy life. Where does cancer come from? Why would it start again?’
Terrified of bad news, Brett didn’t return to Spain for the follow-up tests. Instead, he put his son on a ketogenic diet that restricts sugar and carbohydrates, thus reducing glucose intake, which is a fuel for cancer. He also took him for weekly, and then daily, oxygen treatment.
His wife was at her wits’ end. ‘I told him to just take Ashya for the tests,’ she says. ‘But Brett had convinced himself the tumour had returned. It was making me so upset inside. So I left our home for Malaga. I kept believing Brett would see sense and let Ashya have his test.’ But Brett didn’t.
Naghmeh consulted lawyers about a divorce. Her actions brought matters to a head. Brett agreed to take their son to Malaga for the tests, which revealed the ‘shadow’ was not a tumour but a cluster of abnormal blood vessels, known as a cavernoma, commonly found following radiotherapy. ‘I was so choked up when the radiologist told me,’ says Brett. ‘But because of the cavernoma, we needed to see a neurologist.’
On their return to the UK, Brett called the oncology department at Southampton General, the hospital that had fought them all the way to the High Court to dictate what was best for their child. ‘I just said, “Can you help me?” says Brett. ‘There was no nastiness, no unkindness. They said, “Bring the scans this afternoon”.’ Southampton confirmed the MRI scans show Ashya is tumour-free.
Dr Hernán Cortés-funes, the head of oncology at HC Marbella International hospital in Spain, who has treated Ashya since he was discharged from the Prague hospital, says he is in remission and the chances of the tumour returning are ‘very low’.
Looking forward
‘We can think about a future,’ says Brett. ‘It will be beautiful to watch him grow into a young man who, yes, will always be affected by the last few years, but not as badly as if we hadn’t done what we felt was right. Just because your child goes into hospital it doesn’t mean you should leave your parental rights at the door,’ says Brett. ‘Ashya is testament to that.’ ✱ Saving Ashya (£9.99, nielsen) is available from amazon.co.uk