Chronicle Editor
An 11-year-old boy will have the “best Christmas ever” after his devastated family were told it will be his last.
Just two weeks ago Reece Probert was told he had six months to live when doctors found he was suffering from an inoperable brain tumour.
Reece seemed perfectly healthy just last month, but his mum Jenna (31) took him to the doctors when he suddenly developed a limp and then a slur, reports BirminghamLive.
Scans revealed that the schoolboy had a rare aggressive brain tumour with a prognosis of between six to 12 months after diagnosis.
His devastated family are rallying around to give him the best Christmas ever.
Jenna from Wombourne, south Staffordshire, said: “It will be our last Christmas together and we want to make sure it’s nice and comfortable and cosy for Reece.
“I want to make him feel like a king. He should feel like the most important person in the world. It will be emotional because it will be his last Christmas.
“We will decorate the whole house and make it look like Santa’s grotto. It will be the most memorable Christmas ever.
“Reece knows he has cancer but doesn’t know the reality of it. I can’t face telling him. I just need him to be happy.
“Christmas will be a family day and we will give him anything he wants.
“We will just cherish it together as a family.”
Just six weeks ago Reece was fit and healthy, but after returning from a trip to see his grandparents in Northern Ireland in November his mum noticed unusual symptoms.
He had a limp and a sore hand, so his GP sent him to A&E for an x-ray, and for tests on his tendons.
But Jenna really began to worry when Reece began to slur his words two weeks ago.
A neighbour – who had been diagnosed a benign brain tumour – noticed Reece struggling to speak and feared the worst, having suffered similar symptoms in the past.
Personal trainer Jenna phoned 111 and was advised to take Reece to the Russell’s Hall Hospital, in Dudley, where doctors initially thought he had suffered a stroke.
But on December 1, when doctors at Birmingham Children’s Hospital performed a CT scan and found an “abnormality” the the brain. – The Mirror
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