FOR THE LOVE OF TOM

When Deborah Mitchell, 57, lost her son, she vowed to help other families facing the same heartbreak

- RACHEL TOMPKINS

Running around on the beach chasing bubbles, my three children screamed in delight. ‘You can’t catch me!’ Tom, then seven, laughed, his blond hair blowing in the wind.

It was 2009 and I was on holiday in Cornwall with my husband Andrew and our children, Tom, Maddie, then nine, and Evie, three. Today, we’d come to Watergate Bay to celebrate Evie’s birthday, with her new bubble machine. We were having a great time, especially Tom who hadn’t stopped giggling. Kind, thoughtful and funny, Tom was a mummy’s boy who loved snuggling on my lap, but also playing rugby, football and dashing around on his scooter and skateboard. He had a lot of energy, and that day at the beach is one of my happiest memories.

It wasn’t long after that when things started to change. The following March, Tom just wasn’t himself, suffering intermittently with vomiting and headaches, and we went back and forth to the doctor. When he woke up one night screaming with an agonising headache, we took him to A&E at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. After a CT scan, our worst fears were confirmed when Andrew and I were taken into a side room.

‘Tom has a tumour on the brain,’ the consultant explained. In shock, Andrew passed out and collapsed to the floor. As someone helped him up and got him some water I remember just sitting there, feeling stuck in a nightmare. We were told the mass on Tom’s brain was creating fluid, which was causing pressure, so they needed to operate to release it.

As we were led back to Tom on the ward, my mind raced with how – and what – to tell him.

‘You’ve got something in your head,’ we explained, gently. ‘It’s like fizzy lemonade, which they’ve got to take out.’