Fundraiser started for young cancer patient

Jack Bowman (pictured) was a happy and outgoing lad but that all changed last year when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma aged 15.

Then his parents were told the devastating news in October this year that it’s very unlikely the disease will be cured.

Jack recently completed another ten sessions of chemotherapy and his parents, Margaret and Charles, are now awaiting those results.

The next move will be MIBG treatment for which he will travel to London. The treatment is expected to last a month or perhaps two.

His mum explained that it all started off with Jack, a pupil at Magherafelt High School, developing “a bit of a limp” and finding it increasingly difficult to walk.

They took him to Antrim Area Hospital Emergency Department, where x-rays were carried out, and juvenile arthritis was diagnosed.

He was sent home with painkillers.

Margaret explained that Jack’s condition got worse and they took him back to the hospital where more tests and scans were done.

The tests revealed he had a mass in his abdomen and a biopsy was performed which two weeks later, in August 2019, showed he had a stage four high risk neuroblastoma.

Normally this type of neuroblastoma is more prevalent in children under 10.

It was devastating news for the couple and Jack’s brother and sister.

Jack was put on a treatment plan of between 12-18 months.

He is now over a year into the treatment, including a clinical trial which hasn’t really worked. During the treatment he had a relapse.

From a boy who was always out and about enjoying “hanging out with friends”, he is now confined to the house. He gets about using a mobility scooter.

His mum said they started the fund-raising page to get him something special to cheer him up during the treatments.

They set up a go fund me page at the start of this month and have so far raised £570 of a £2,500 target.

The Bowman family say they don’t know how the next round of Jack’s treatment will go but they want to cheer him up as much as possible.

---Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a copy of the paper. You can also support trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription of the News Letter.