A CENTRAL Queensland family are dealing with the worst news a young family could receive – their young son, Kye, five, has an inoperable brain tumour.
Cinnamon and Scott Funch, Milman, have two sons; Kye, and his older brother Cody, and now they are making the trip to Brisbane every fortnight for treatment which they hope will extend their youngest son’s life.
Kye was diagnosed as having a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) brain tumour.
Words from Kye’s dad, Scott Funch:
On September the 26th 2017 our lives changed forever. In a heartbeat nothing would ever be the same again.
A week prior our five-year-old son Kye was a normal kid doing normal kid stuff.
At the start of the week he tripped over a few times whilst running and we thought it was a little odd.
A few days later Kye started to drool a little and his speech had started to slur as well.
Two days later on the Sunday Kye had developed a very far away stare and was quite unbalanced when walking.
After seeing a GP the next day in which he simply made a referral to see a paediatrician which would have been in three weeks time, we took Kye home and within an hour he had fallen over three times and we rushed to the Rockhampton Base Hospital where he underwent an MRI Tuesday lunchtime.
This is when our world came crashing down.
We were taken into a room with the two paediatric doctors and a social worker and were sat at a table with a box of tissues in the middle of it.
Here we were told our beautiful boy had a brain tumour and he needs to fly to Brisbane immediately.
We never thought we’d never ever hear those terrible words and wish that no other parent ever has to.
As Kye’s older brother Cody and I were driving down on the Wednesday, Cinnamon had to face the toughest news any parent could receive.
Talking with neurosurgeons who said there is nothing we can do, the tumour was inoperable due to it’s location in the brain stem.
The oncologists said that chemotherapy doesn’t work on this rare type of tumour and that the only treatment is Radiotherapy and on average a child has nine months to live.
We were told that after radiation take your child home and make memories.
While two months of being in hospital and a month living at The Ronald MacDonald House Kye underwent 30 rounds of radiotherapy and we were blessed to be able to bring our brave boy home who is back to being able to do everything a child should be doing.
He is currently attending prep at The Caves State School and is enjoying life!
Kye still visits the Lady Cilento Hospital in Brisbane every fortnight to receive a trial based immunotherapy which we hope will prolong his life.
We are trying to raise funds so we can have the option of heading overseas for other trials and treatments that aren’t available here in Australia and to create valuable memories of our beautiful boy.
We can’t thank the CRCA enough for their support, all the people willing to donate their time, Lance Jones for the use of his venue, George Busby and The Corrie’s for the donation of their stock.
We would love to see everyone at the event and hope to make it something to remember.
By Scott Funch (Kye and Cody’s dad).
To donate to the family, follow the link here.
On May 12, a Ride for Kye Fundraising Rodeo will be held at the Gavial Creek Rodeo and Campdraft Complex near Gracemere.
Gates will open at 2.30pm with the rain event kicking off at 5pm.
There will be bulls, broncs, bareback, and barrel racing on the cards.