My little boy's heartbreaking WISH

When Jade Faulkner, 25, saw hair in the bath, it was a reminder of just how sick her son was

- EMMA ROSSITER, ANN CUSACK

For some people, Sunday is a religious day, for others it simply marks the end of the weekend, but in our house, Sunday was always the best day. It was the one time a week when neither my partner, Sam, 26, or I had to work and instead we could dedicate our full attention to our family, and especially our son, Todd.

Whether we planned to let Todd ride around the park on his balance bike or visit friends and family, Sundays were always full of fun and laughter.

That’s why I’ll never forget that it was a Sunday evening this January when I first spotted the lump on Todd’s face. I’d just finished drying him from his bedtime bath when I noticed a bump jutting out from under his chin. Todd, then two, seemed fine and was babbling away, but still I’d not seen it before and it concerned me, so I rang 111 to be safe and was advised to see a doctor first thing in the morning.

Worrying time

Unfortunately, I had go to my chef job, but the second I got a break I called Sam. ‘What did the doctor say?’ I asked.

‘At most, they think it could be a swollen lymph node,’ he said. Doctors had advised us to monitor it and hopefully it’d go down on its own. Yet, a week passed and the lump hadn’t budged, if anything it had grown.

Twice more we returned to our GP, and even when we were referred to our local hospital, they simply prescribed antibiotics. I followed the course to the letter, hoping it would help, but somehow I knew it wasn’t going to.