It’s the words no parent ever wants to hear, that their three-year-old child has aggressive neuroblastoma cancer and must immediately begin grueling treatment if he is to have any hope of survival. “I remember feeling like my whole world had come crashing down,” Claire told Sky News. “I didn’t feel any of my pain, I just felt a pain inside that my child might be dying.” That fateful day was July 5, 2019. Now, three years later, Liam is cancer-free after his family raised £232,000 to get him to New York for an experimental vaccine that may have saved his life. Today, Claire and her husband Mike are close to bringing this potentially ground-breaking treatment to the UK so no other family has to face the struggles they did. She has met Health Secretary Sajid Javid and other senior politicians in her bid to get a vaccine trial in Britain and across Europe. Neuroblastoma is a rare type of cancer that affects around 100 children in the UK each year and is most common in children under the age of five. The nature of the disease means that even after rounds and rounds of painful treatment, there is a high risk of it coming back – with a survival rate of less than 10% with certain recurrent neuroblastoma. When Claire and Mike heard about the experimental cancer vaccine for children in remission from neuroblastoma, they knew it would be a huge challenge to get Liam into the trial. His inclusion was dependent on him being cancer-free – a certainty despite the intense chemotherapy and radiotherapy he was undergoing – and the cost was a staggering £232,000. To make matters worse, they had a razor-thin window to raise the money – the first dose of the vaccine had to be administered within 45 days of Liam’s cancer treatment finishing. Read more: Seven-year-old Isla Caton dies after five-year battle with neuroblastoma Personalized cancer vaccine trials produce ‘really promising’ results Image: Back home in Kent after returning from the US The lockdown is hampering fundraising plans In May 2020, amid a COVID-19 lockdown canceling fundraising events across the country, they had raised around £30,000, with just months to go before the deadline. “And you have to raise that money while your child is having constant blood transfusions and still having cancer treatment because you have to go to the US to get the vaccine,” Liam’s dad Mike told Sky News. They had a close-knit team around them doing their best to raise money, but time was running against them at a time when charitable donations were falling as people struggled financially during the pandemic. After one weekend everything changed. Their story was picked up by Sky News and others and £100,000 was donated in just two days. “After that things changed,” Mike said. There was still a long journey ahead, but the donations kept coming in and it looked like it was going to happen. Image: The family on a trip to Portugal, their first holiday since Liam’s treatment was completed COVID-19 is a threat even when Liam was in the trial When they finally achieved their goal in late July 2020, Liam’s family and friends screamed and cried with joy. “It was just the most incredible feeling, knowing we were going to New York,” Claire said. “It wasn’t a dream anymore. It was reality. It was going to happen.” And despite difficulties with travel arrangements – flights to the US were banned at the time – the family went for the first of many vaccinations at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan in September. But even after everything they had overcome to get Liam to America, they couldn’t relax because of the constant threat of COVID-19. The first coronavirus vaccinations in the UK were still a few months away and Claire and Mike knew that if Liam contracted the virus it would prevent him from traveling back to the US for his appointments, jeopardizing the entire treatment. Cancer free and thriving as mum Claire meets the Minister for Health Fast forward to today: Liam returned home having completed his treatments in America last year. Now six, he’s enjoying school (and Paddington Bear) and the family is settling back into normal life at home in Edenbridge, Kent. Most importantly, Liam remains cancer free. Now Claire and Mike want to make sure UK children don’t have to raise huge sums of money and travel thousands of miles to take part in the vaccine trial. In their search Claire met with Health Secretary Sajid Javid and the family hope to make the UK a center for the trial in the not too distant future. She said: “When I had that meeting with Sajid, I thought that by telling him everything by telling him our personal story, he connected it maybe on a more emotional level. “He’s a father himself and he really wanted to do a vaccine trial and said it was just a matter now of talking to people and getting his team involved.” Any trial in the UK could save the NHS millions in cancer care for children with neuroblastoma who relapse, Claire believes. Asked how she felt after her family’s incredible journey, she said it can be hard to think about what happened. He added: “I guess they say you don’t know what the future holds, but we’re so excited that it has a future and we can see that as each day goes by. “It’s very difficult, I must say, looking back. “But I do it because I want to help others and I want to make sure no family has to go through what we went through, and also no child has to go through what Liam went through.”
