WHEN Ginny Walker noticed her son’s gums were growing over his teeth she knew something was wrong, writes JAMIE WALKER.

Ginny said 11-year-old Ben had been ill for a little while when they took him to the hospital in June 2018.

“We were on holiday in Cornwall,” Ginny said.

“Halfway through we noticed he wasn’t smiling and it was because his gums were going way over his teeth.

“We’d go out for walks and he’d also get tired and frustrated.

“It was difficult to go anywhere without him struggling.”

Ginny, 46, said Ben had not complained of any pain but when she noticed his teeth the family took action immediately.

After consulting dentists and doctors Ginny and husband James, found themselves in hospital with Ben.

By this time she says he had turned pale and almost yellow in colour.

Ginny said: “The doctor told me under his breath that it was marrow but I didn’t think at this point it was leukaemia.”

“When you hear they’re trying to rule out leukaemia your mind goes positive because you think it’s not that.

“But they’re trying to rule it out because that’s what they think it is.

“They did a bone marrow test and that’s when they confirmed he had 98 per cent leukaemic cells in his bone marrow.”

She said the moment she found out her child had leukaemia was one of the hardest things she has ever been through.

“When you watch those cancer adverts on TV and you get the diagnosis and voices go muffled, it’s like that,” she said.

“At one point I said my world was breaking, that’s how it felt.”

But Ginny said she was surprised and proud of how well Ben handled the news.

“We’ve always said he’ll surprise us and through this journey he has done that,” she said.

“He took it all in his stride.

“After three rounds of chemotherapy he said that he didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to get through.

“But he said he wanted to keep going until he got better so he could get home.

“That was the moment I saw how strong he was and how he’d made the mental decision to keep fighting this.”

After three rounds of chemotherapy Ben finally had his life saved by a stem cell donor.

It turned out none of the family was a match for the youngster so he was saved by someone they have ever met.

Despite some hiccups the stem cell transplant – a four to six-hour long surgery in which Ben’s blood cells were replaced with that of the donor – was a success.

Ben, who has sisters Ella, 13, and Rose, nine, returned home on December 23 and while he is still on medication, his hair is growing back and he is feeling more like himself.

Now Ginny, who is from Rogate near Chichester, is an advocate for blood cancer charity DKMS and is urging people to donate stem cells so that other leukaemia sufferers can have a chance of surviving the disease.

She said: “I firmly believe that if

you can be on the stem cell register you should do it.

“It’s only in a minority of cases the cells get taken out of the bone marrow but normally it’s just out of the blood.

“It’s four or five hours out of your time to save a life.

“For anyone who is diagnosed, to hear there is somebody out there who could give you blood and try and help, it may make things a bit smoother.

“As a parent who knows what it’s like, to hear that is the most beautiful thing.”

Due to health laws patients are not allowed to meet their donors unless two years have passed and both parties consent.

But Ginny said that Ben’s mystery donor is now effectively “a member of the family”.

She said: “We sent them a thank you card but that doesn’t cut it.

“How do you say thank you to someone who has stepped in to save your child’s life?”

Ginny hopes that people will be moved

by Ben’s story and donate their own stem cells.

“You don’t know how important it is until you’re in that situation,” she said.

“But if you can be kind and give out kindness to somebody it will come back to you when you need it.”

To donate or find out more about blood cancer visit www.dkms.org.uk/en.