Early last year (beginning of Feb 2004) after a weekend down at Uncle Stevie's house near Bath, I started to get really bad pains in my right foot and shin. After a couple of trips to the doctors, I went to see my friend Doug Penn a wonderful 'back man' who told my mummy that there was something 'seriously wrong' with my back. He spoke to our doctors who agreed, and referred me to the Royal Berkshire hospital in Reading.
I stayed in Reading for a few days, whilst they did loads of tests on
me to see what was the matter. I met some excellent people including the
big rugby-playing consultant Mr Sean O'Leary. He was superb - really nice,
and very very thorough. I saw him on the 7th Feb, and he told mummy and
daddy that the MRI scan that I had showed that I had a 'growth' or tumor
(the size of a snooker ball) in my spine, at the very bottom, in the sacrum
(just above the coccyx). He said that the tumor was 'malignant' which
means that it is a dangerous one, a cancer, which will carry on growing
until I go pop basically, so it needs to be stopped. I've got a Ewing's
Sarcoma (PNET). 
This
means that the tumor can spread really easily, so the whole body needs
to be treated, not just the area where the tumor is. If my tumor spread
it would be very dangerous for me.
So I was sent to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, under the excellent
and very nice consultant Kate Wheeler. She has told me that I need to
kill this tumor, and the best way of doing this is to do the chemo therapy
which pumps me full of medicines that will kill just about everything
in my body, including the tumor. 
Ok,
so not EVERYTHING, but all the blood, and the good things in the blood,
ok ! So I've got 6 'courses' of chemo,every three weeks, followed by 5
weeks of radiotherapy (like really strong X-rays, but aimed right at the
tumor), and then maybe some more chemo afterwards. Basically I'll be in
and out of hospital for 9 months to a year. boo. (at least I get to miss
school !! hooray!).
Nobody knows what causes these tumors to grow - they just do. Not very many other children get this either - maybe about 20 per year in the uk, so at least I'm unique !!
Anyway - if you want to know more go to the childrens cancer site, or the childrens cancer study group site - they are both really excellent.
Love M.
X.