Emily and Damon Potts started noticing changes in their two-year-old son Liam nearly two months ago, but they could not have predicted what was to come.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The first signs that something wasn’t right was the night terrors.
“We started noticing a few things that were different about him, like he was waking up through the night screaming,” Emily explained. “He was really disorientated, we couldn’t calm him down, I just put it down to being a two-year-old.”
But when Liam started vomiting, they called the doctor.
“He (the doctor) put it down to a virus, like a viral infection,” she said.
When the vomiting continued they went to the hospital.
“Again, they said it was a stomach bug, but we found it really strange that none of us got sick.”
Over the next few weeks, Liam’s pupils became enlarged and he started to shake, so Emily asked his daycare staff to keep an eye on him because, ‘she didn’t want to be a paranoid mum’, believing he was still recovering from a ‘stomach bug’.
They agreed something wasn’t right.
After filming Liam shaking, Emily took him back to the hospital and showed the footage, the doctor agreed something wasn’t right.
Liam was rushed in for a CT scan, this was the moment his mum realised ‘this was going to be big’.
We received the news at 10:30pm that Liam had swelling on the brain, lots of fluid build-up and two spots or tumours blocking the path for the fluids to get out
- Emily Potts
“We received the news at 10:30pm that Liam had swelling on the brain, lots of fluid build-up and two spots or tumours blocking the path for the fluids to get out,” Emily said.
The doctors explained emergency surgery was required and Liam would need to be flown to Westmead Children’s Hospital as soon as possible.
Further surgeries and an MRI scan revealed the situation was a lot worse than first thought, Emily said..
Liam has 30 tumours in his brain, meaning surgery is not an option, radiation is not an option.
A week later, Liam started chemotherapy.
The next major date is an MRI scan on April 10, but Emily and Damon are not giving up the fight.
“We’re looking at Germany, we’re looking at anything. We’re trying to get all of Liam’s reports to Doctor Charlie Teo (Australian neurosurgeon), but he’s going to cost an arm and a leg,” Emily said. “One of the surgeries he did on an 18-year-old was $130 thousand.”
A GoFundMe account has been set up by ‘Aunty Shayna, Aunty Chloe and Aunty Jess’ which has already raised over $32 thousand.
“They have been amazing,” Emily said through tears, “I knew that we had a lot of friends, a lot of support, but the generosity has been overwhelming.”
