Reuben

Reuben’s story

Back in late 2016, Reuben was waking in the night with tummy pain and fevers for around six weeks. After an ultrasound, a suspicious mass was found in Reuben’s tummy, and his parents were told he had stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma.   

Treatment started immediately and Reuben received his first course of chemotherapy just one week later. Reuben spent his third and fourth birthdays, as well as countless other special days, in hospital receiving treatment, which included surgery, stem cell harvest, high-dose chemotherapy, stem cell transplant, 14 radiotherapy sessions and five rounds of immunotherapy. He also had countless bone marrow aspirates, trephines, MRI, CT and MIBG scans, ultrasounds, blood and platelet transfusions.  

"One of the hardest decisions was putting Reuben through the gruelling treatments needed to save him, not really knowing what the long-term side effects would be," Reuben's dad, Kulwant.

Reuben completed frontline treatment and received the amazing news that he was cancer-free in January 2018. His family decided to fundraise to take him to New York to enrol on the bivalent vaccine clinical trial, in the hope it would keep his neuroblastoma away. Reuben completed the trial in 2019 and remains in remission. 

_{Solving Kids' Cancer UK's children's fundraising campaigns} 

_{Funds raised will go towards helping Reuben and his family. If Reuben no longer needs the funds or is in remission five years post the end of successful treatment, the funds will be used to support other children and families affected by neuroblastoma through our activities. For children with high-risk neuroblastoma, like Reuben, the survival rate is much lower than other childhood cancers. Upon relapse, this rate reduces even further.}