I’ll beat leukaemia for a second time, vows brave Henry Reilly
8:10am Friday 30th December 2011 in News
BRAVE Henry Reilly has vowed to beat leukaemia for a second time.
Henry, six, of Empress Drive, West Mersea, spent Christmas in hospital after learning the cancer had returned.
The West Mersea Primary School pupil has to have three lots of intensive chemotherapy before a bone marrow transplant.
Upbeat mum Rebecca says the family are looking forward to the new year and beating the disease together again.
She said: “We have beaten this – now we are going to beat it again. It’s onwards and up-wards.”
Rebecca, a teacher at Stanway School, only spends two nights a week at home, so she can be with Harry at the hospital, in Cambridge.
She said: “He is coping really well.
“The only time he really gets down is if he gets a bug, because be has to be isolated.
“One of the nurses said it’s like he has got out of jail when he goes back to the ward.
“Henry does miss school, but a couple of his teachers have been up here to see him and we have been having Skype link-ups with his class too.”
Henry wants to visit Legoland when he is discharged from hospital.
He was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in April last year, but returned home after doctors believed he had beaten it. But Henry, Rebecca, dad Pete, and sisters India, four, and 11-month-old Freya were dealt a blow when they were told during a check-up the cancer of the white blood cells had returned.
Rebecca, 39, said: “Henry was responding really well.
“We were 18 months down the line and he had been really brave and fantastic.
“Henry’s hair had grown back and he had been going to school.
“Everything was normal, but then it came back.”
Henry has spent nine weeks at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge, and celebrated Christmas on the ward with his family.
Rebecca said: “It was pretty devastating, but we knew what to expect this time round and we know things will get better.
“It just means there was one horrible cell which was resistant and then it multiplied.”