Vital care that helped Jasper get the all-clear

A COMBINATION of remarkable bravery and swift treatment saw Jasper Johnson beat cancer in just 75 days.

The seven year old was diagnosed with the rare blood cancer Burkitt non-Hodgkin lymphoma in January after suffering from stomach cramps and weight loss.

Scans showed he had an intussusception – where part of the bowel turns in on itself like a telescope – and needed emergency surgery that day.

Tests on the section which had been removed found it was cancerous, and straight away he began the chemotherapy which would rid him of the disease. After two rounds of treatment, Jasper received the all-clear at the beginning of April.

Mum Brenda said it was a ‘whirlwind’ that had turned the family’s lives upside down.

The trainee chef, 45, from Allbrook, near Southampton, said: ‘It’s a horrendous journey and ours was so short compared with other people’s. But when he rang the bell [on leaving hospital at the end of treatment] it was so happy and so amazing. I just kept crying, I couldn’t stop. There’s just so much emotion that pours out.’

Jasper’s dad Richard, 43, remembers the moment they were given the news every parent dreads.

Following his son’s surgery at Southampton General Hospital, they were asked to return for a post- op review. ‘We sat down with three doctors and they explained that the offending piece of tissue they’d analysed had come back with some abnormalities,’ he said.

‘I asked them outright, “Is it cancer?” The surgeon replied, “Yes”. I asked if it was terminal but he said it was treatable. The rest was just a blur.’

Tests revealed the cancer had been caught early and had not spread but that Jasper would need chemotherapy to make sure all traces were gone.

Mr Johnson, an air traffic controller, said they then had to explain to Jasper that he needed more treatment as well as break the news to his older sister Isobel, now 11.

He said: ‘We told him he had a bug and the doctors needed to give him some medicine to get rid of it. We said the medicine might make him poorly and might make his hair fall out and that he may need to have some tests to check the bug wasn’t hiding somewhere.

‘We told him that if the bug was still around, he could have more medicine to make sure it didn’t come back again.’

Jasper was given two rounds of chemotherapy, which Cancer Research UK played a key role in developing.

Mrs Johnson said: ‘Our consultant explained it was a treatment that had been used for the past 15 to 20 years because it works.

‘The fact they knew what it was, knew exactly what the treatment was that was needed, that makes something so unbearable, bearable to hear.

‘They’ve got the answer, this is what’s going to happen, this is the schedule and these are the drugs you’re going to get... it’s clear-cut.

‘But it’s not like that for everyone and it should be. Everyone should be able to hear “this is what we’re going to do” and just kick cancer’s backside.

‘That’s why people should be donating to them because that’s what cancer research does – it works.’