RU's Fund

Ruan James Shaker was born just a few days before Christmas 2016, four days shy of his due date. He came into the world after a straightforward water-birth weighing a healthy 9lbs 6oz.

Once home he continued to thrive. He was a healthy, happy baby and joy to be around. Ru had brought something very special to our family, a calmness. His big brown eyes seemed so much wiser than their age, and it was somehow reassuring to gaze into them.

Just six short months after we brought Ru home from hospital came a date that will forever be etched in our families history. Friday 16th June, after three weeks of GP visits, health visitor appointments, out-of-hours doctor visits and trips to our local A&E, we were now in the Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). The biopsy stage is usually relatively straightforward, but because of the location and size of Ru’s tumour the intubation and biopsy were going to bring their own set of problems.

The operation went ahead and Ru surprised everyone by coping remarkably well with it all. At 7pm the following day we were taken into a meeting room to hear the results. Nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to hear. Not only did our beautiful Ru have a malignant tumour in his chest, but an extremely rare type of paediatric cancer with very little information available and a ‘dismal prognosis’. Cases of survival were in the vast minority.

Five weeks later Ru had an emergency operation with the hope of resecting the full tumour, but it wasn’t possible and it fell to chemotherapy to try and get rid of the remaining bulk - we armed ourselves with research, schooled ourselves in medical terminology and threw ourselves into a world of consultant meetings, intensive care and chemotherapy treatment. Although tumour growth remained stable, our consultant believed the deterioration in Ru’s lungs was a clear sign of disease progression.

Devastatingly in the early hours of Wednesday 16th August our beautiful son took his last breath in our arms, in a hospital room surrounded by love, in the same way he had come into the world just eight short months before.

I will forever remember the deep sadness that moment brought, from that day on our lives have changed and our son has been robbed of his future.

Our lives have fallen into three categories, before cancer, during cancer and after cancer. Every day brings its own challenge’s but we are determined to remember Ru in all that we do.

Our hope is that in setting up this fund in Ru’s name we will help other families like us who get thrown into a battle with a rare paediatric cancer. We do this to support the amazing work that Grace Kelly Childhood Cancer Trust are already doing and in the hope that other families will have some light to aim for and a chance of a future free from cancer.