Precious moment little boy takes his first steps hours before amputation
Video has captured the precious moment a young boy took his first proper steps just before having one of his legs amputated.
Hayley Price, shared the video of her son Oliver, taken at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital online, saying it is a memory she will never forget.
"It felt like a sign, like god wanted me to see Oliver walk on his legs for the first and last time," Mrs Price wrote in a blog post.
The 15-month-old had a large tumour known as plexiform schwannoma on his lower left leg and needed to have the limb amputated above the knee.
The young mother wrote about the milestone of those first steps in a blog post titled 'Day of the amputation – 2nd June 2017': "My mum and me went into the sensory room with Oliver and she found a stroller from the playroom.
"He stood up and there he was walking, I couldn’t believe it he took a couple steps with the stroller the previous week but not like that.
Mrs Price, 26, reportedly noticed an issue soon after Oliver was born, saying there were two red spots on his leg.
However the concerned mother-of-one told the Manchester Evening News she struggled to get a diagnosis for her son.
“They started to grow and become lumpy, I knew it wasn’t a birthmark and I begged for Oliver to be seen by a specialist,” Mrs Price said.
A biopsy was conducted when the doctor didn't know what the growth was.
“When the results came back we found out it was a non-cancerous nerve tumour, but it was so rare they had to send the results to America for more testing.”
The Manchester Evening News reports there was a tumour behind the knee as well the growth on his leg and while the toddler had surgery in January, it was only a matter of weeks before it began growing back.
Unfortunately the following month the parents were told two tumours had wrapped around the bone and that the amputation was necessary.
Mrs Price said, “I couldn’t stop the tears from running down my face.
"Words can’t explain the moment we were told my precious little boy would have his leg taken away."
The mother told the Manchester Evening News that six weeks after the amputation the young boy was wanting to explore and was pulling himself up and crawling again.
While the Oliver is said to be recovering well his mother said he will need constant monitoring in case more tumours develop.
She said, “We also have regular check ups with the oncologist, as, although his tumours weren’t cancerous, doctors still know very little about them, they don’t know ‘the nature of the beast’, as one told us.”
