Myles first complained of a sore knee before his symptoms escalated
Myles Benson was a typical nine-year-old before his shocking diagnosis(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Myles Benson from Aintree was a typical nine-year-old boy who loved playing sports and supporting Liverpool FC, but during a school sports day earlier this year his life was turned upside down after he lost all feeling in the right side of his body.
Myles’ mum, Zena, 47, said her youngest son’s health issues started when he complained of an everyday problem he was experiencing in his right leg. Zena told the ECHO: “I think we had just been to Whitby in the Easter holidays and he was saying that he had a pain in his knee, so we took him along to Ormskirk [Hospital] and they eventually did an X-ray and they were like ‘oh no, there’s nothing there’.”
However, a return visit to seek further medical attention brought about more questions than answers. A diagnosis suggested that he might have been suffering from a common disease in the knee. Zena added: “Then we went back to see them again and they said that they think he had Osgood-Schlatter disease and I was like ‘no, he can’t because you’ve just told me that you usually get that during a growth spurt at the age of 10’ and he was only eight at the time. So I was a bit like ‘no I don’t think that I believe that’.”
As the months passed his teachers in school had began to notice some significant changes in the way Myles was acting. Most notably, they had seen that he had started using his right hand a lot less than usual as well as continual complaints of pains in his leg.
His symptoms became most severe when he was competing in a sports day event (Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
However, Myles’ mounting health complaints dramatically came to a head on what should have been a joyous occasion as his mum watched him compete in this year’s sports day. She said: “When I watched him at the sports day, he could hardly run and then the whole of the right hand side of his body had dropped.”
Now increasingly concerned about what could possibly be wrong with Myles, Zena took him to see to see the GP who almost instantly sent them on their way to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. There, staff carried out a number of observations before carrying out a CT [Computed Tomography] scan. After a tense wait for Myles and his family, later that evening they were given the news that the scan had found an extremely large cyst that covered the whole of the left side of the brain, and pushing over to the right hand side.
After an MRI scan the following day, they also discovered a brain tumour, with the doctor deciding the best course of action was for Myles to undergo an operation to try and remove the growth the next day. In what was a successful procedure, the tumour and cyst were successfully removed by the operating team at Alder Hey and in even better news, they were then told that the tumour was, in the experts’ opinion, benign.
In the immediate aftermath, it looked like Myles was on a swift road to recovery as he made strides towards becoming himself again, spending a week in hospital getting help regaining his mobility.
His mum and dad are hoping to give him an extra special Christmas this year(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
After he returned home and had a nice rest over the summer holidays, in September he attended the first of what is due to be a five year course of oncological check-ups that would see him have an MRI scan each time. However, the results revealed that a lot of fluid had built up and started putting pressure on his brain, meaning that he was pencilled in for a second operation on his brain, this time to remove the build-up of fluid.
While Myles had remained his usual smiley self after his first operation, Zena said that she saw marked changes following the second procedure on his brain. She said: “Unfortunately this time, he’s not been the same child, his concentration is not the same, his memory is not the same, his personality isn’t the same, he’s under phycological help, he’s got an occupational health therapist.”
However, despite his ongoing health battle, in October, Zena said Myles came to her and said he was keen to raise money for Alder Hey for all the care and support they have given him throughout his journey. Zena added: “He was like ‘I feel sorry for all the children [in Alder Hey] and I want to say thank you to the nurses’, so we did a fundraiser in the Blue Anchor pub [in Aintree], we did a raffle and a tombola and we had a Just Giving page. We raised £2,350 for Alder Hey which we took in on Tuesday and then him and his school did care baskets to say thank you to all of the staff for looking after him.”
Myles helped fundraise for Alder Hey who have helped him hugely throughout his health journey(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
As Myles continues to look out for others, his most recent oncological exam earlier this month showed a positive update for the youngster, with signs that his brain is now starting fill up some of the space that was initially created by the cyst and tumour which had started his health battle all those months ago.
Zena is looking towards the future and is hoping that she can make Myles’s Christmas extra special this year by arranging for him to meet his heroes at Liverpool FC. She said: “He’s obsessed with Liverpool, he’s been to a couple of matches with his dad, but obviously since he’s been ill, we’ve had to be careful because he can’t have any kind of knocks or anything like that, so his older brother Owen has been going with his dad instead.”
She added: “He’d written his [Christmas] list and I was like ‘oh my goodness’ and he always goes on about how much he loves [Hugo] Ekitike and how much I like [Mohamed] Salah, then I was listening to him talk and I saw the smile on his face, that’s when I thought, wouldn’t it be nice, as a parent, if I could do something special for him, because I think he deserves it, after everything that he’s been through and he’s done this fantastic thing for Alder Hey even though he’s not well.
“It’s going to be a long time until we get that ‘everything’s okay’ diagnosis, so I wonder if anyone can help me and make this happen, putting an even bigger smile on his face.”