Everyone else had completely vacated the hospital ward and it was just Dundee parents Greg and Vicki Stewart sitting in the same spot where they had been all day. Then at the end of the hallway they saw a well-dressed consultant and a couple of nurses walking towards them.
They just looked at each other and said: This isn’t good.
The consultant and nurses came over, sat down beside them and said: “We are sorry to tell you, but the scan has revealed your son has a mass in his brain.”
The couple were completely shocked.
Greg said: “After a pause, we were like ‘right, ok, so what do we need to do now?’
“The consultant said they needed to send him to Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital because it was beyond anything they could do in Dundee.
“He said: ‘We have an ambulance on its way right now.'”
Why has Greg signed up for Dundee Kiltwalk 2023?
This was the beginning of a long journey for Greg and Vicki Stewart after their two-year-old son, Sandy was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
And the help their son received from The Archie Foundation while he was in Ninewells Hospital is the reason why Greg has signed up for next month’s Dundee Kiltwalk on Sunday, August 20.
The mass charity fundraiser sees participants tackling either the Mighty Stride or the Wee Wander in Dundee to raise money for the charity of their choice.
Last August, Greg took part in Dundee Kiltwalk for the first time and raised £1,000 for Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital.
This year he is tackling the 20-mile Mighty Stride raising money for the charity.
This is after The Archie Foundation provided Sandy with activities to do during his long chemotherapy treatments at Tayside Children’s Hospital in Ninewells.
Greg will be joined by friends and work colleagues from Dundee-based Kilmac, where he works as an estimator.
Starting to realise Sandy was very unwell
Greg explained when he started to realise something was seriously wrong with his son.
“Near the end of 2018, when Sandy was just turning two, he had reduced how much he was eating and was feeling very lethargic,” Greg said.
“We took him to the doctor’s but kept being told it was ‘normal’ for his age – that children burn a lot of energy and don’t eat so much.
“But he was dropping weight and we noticed he started having issues with one of his eyes – it started drooping ever so slightly.”
The couple took Sandy to see an ophthalmologist who checked his eyes over but didn’t find anything untoward.
But over the period of three months, Sandy dropped 25 per cent of his body weight.
Christmas 2018 proved to be a trigger
Eventually Greg said the main trigger for insisting his son was taken to hospital for tests came on Christmas Day 2018.
“Sandy wasn’t excited at all that Christmas Day.
“In fact he spent almost the entire day in bed asleep.
“That’s when I made the decision that this just wasn’t right and something had to be done about it.”
Further investigation into Sandy’s condition
Greg decided to take him back to the doctor’s, but this time he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“A couple of days after Christmas I took him to the GP and the GP just reiterated what had been said before.
“But I said I wasn’t taking any of it and insisted he refer Sandy to hospital.
“Eventually, after some persuasion, the GP agreed. So we went straight to Ninewells in Dundee.”
The two-year-old was then booked in for an MRI scan which was carried out on January 4, 2019.
Greg said he and Vicki were told Sandy would be back in an hour after the scan.
But it ended up taking a lot longer.
Sandy’s brain tumour diagnosis
Eventually, Greg and Vicki were given the news they had been dreading.
They were told about Sandy’s brain tumour and that he needed to go to Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital immediately.
“At Edinburgh Sick Kids, the neurosurgeon said: ‘There is a mass inside your son’s brain and it looks like it has damaged one of the ventricles, so none of the spinal fluid is able to get out of his head.
“We will need to release it so we are going to take him into surgery tonight.”
At 10pm, Sandy was taken into surgery and the operation lasted around two hours.
Four surgeries as a result of brain tumour
Over the next four weeks, Sandy had four more surgeries.
The first one saw the surgeons removing as much as they could of the tumour, which was deep in the centre of his brain.
And it took about eight hours.
Greg said they managed to remove around 90 per cent of the tumour but hadn’t been able to get it all because of where it was located.
The further three surgeries dealt with the damage the tumour had caused.
Greg and Vicki also discovered Sandy was partially blind in both eyes.
Greg said: “He has lost right side peripheral vision in both eyes.
“This is damage to the optic nerve caused by the tumour pressing on it.”
Over the next three years, Sandy had MRI scans done regularly every three months which showed the tumour was stable.
Chemotherapy plan to target Sandy’s tumour
However, in September 2022, when Sandy attended one of his regularly scheduled scans, the results revealed the tumour had grown.
Greg said: “It hadn’t grown by a massive amount but it was enough for it to be concerning.
“We then made the decision to start a chemotherapy plan for Sandy.
“It started getting rough quite quickly. His hair started falling out and he went back to not eating.”
The current plan sees Sandy having chemotherapy three weeks on and then three weeks off.
Greg explained: “We are using a low-grade, slow chemo treatment to turn the tumour off again so it stops growing.
“If we had gone for a more aggressive chemotherapy treatment it would destroy Sandy’s kidneys or his liver, lungs or heart or some other part of his body.
“The only goal we have here is to stop it doing further damage.
“But if the tumour shrinks by any amount ,that is an added bonus.”
Sandy’s chemotherapy treatment will continue for the next 48 weeks.
Greg continued: “So far he has had 30 doses of chemotherapy and 23 blood transfusions in total.
“He needs the blood transfusions because the chemo destroys the blood cells.
“It knocks the white blood cells leaving him open to infections.”
Sandy takes everything in his stride
But Greg said Sandy, who will start P2 at Mattocks Primary in August, is currently doing well and just takes everything in his stride.
“Sandy sees all the scans and we are very honest with him.
“Vicki and I told him the cancer was being naughty and had woken up again and he understood that.
“We told him we would need to give him some medicine to make it go back to sleep.”
So far Greg said the progress is positive as the bulk of the tumour has shrunk which is a good sign.
Involving Sandy in this year’s Dundee Kiltwalk
And Greg is planning to involve Sandy, who has a little brother, Sam, in next month’s Dundee Kiltwalk.
The dad-of-two added: “Sandy couldn’t manage the whole Kiltwalk. He gets tired very easily and the chemo has caused problems with his joints.
“But I am hoping I can get him dropped off at the Tay Bridge.
“Then I will take him over the bridge to the finish line so we can complete it together.”
Anyone wanting to make a donation to Greg’s fundraiser, can visit his just-giving page.
