'My son knew he could overcome tumour to walk again'

"As soon as he found out it was a tumour, he decided it was something he could overcome and he would be able to walk again," Miriam Fine-Goulden said.

Her "sporty" son Harry Goulden, from Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, woke up one morning paralysed from the chest down due to a rare spinal tumour.

Dr Fine-Goulden describes the 10-year-old as a healthy boy who loves football and playing with his twin brother, Jesse – but on 9 October he suddenly started feeling pain in the back of his neck.

"He didn't go to football practice and he couldn't sleep because the pain was bothering him," she said.

When he awoke the next morning he was paralysed and had "no power in his legs at all".

Harry and his mother rushed to A&E at Evelina London Children's Hospital where an urgent MRI scan revealed a rare tumour the size of a walnut growing on his spine. It had also formed a blood clot, impacting his movement from the chest down and they were informed he may "never walk again".

"When I first heard he wasn't going to be able to walk again, I thought 'OK fine, this is what his life is going to be like'," Dr Fine-Goulden said.

He was then taken to King's College Hospital in a children's specialist ambulance where he received an emergency operation on his spine to remove the blood clot and a large part of the tumour.

The mass itself was benign and samples were sent off for further testing to determine whether it is likely to grow back in the future.

Harry's mother said she was "very nervous" when he woke up in the morning and could not use his legs but after finding out it was caused by a tumour and he would need an operation, he "decided he was going to be fine and he'd be able to walk".

"He was reassured when he knew what it was, I think he felt worried when he didn't know," she added.

Bassel Zebian, Harry's consultant neurosurgeon at King's said they have only seen a "handful" of young people with similar tumours in the last 10 years.

"Harry presented with a rare Diffuse Leptomeningeal Glioneuronal Tumour," he said.

"The tumour was high up in Harry's spinal cord and had bled, resulting in loss of function from the chest down."

He added they had to act quickly to give him the best chance of walking again.

Harry undertook three-and-a-half weeks of extensive physiotherapy at King's, and a further two weeks at a specialist rehabilitation hospital in Stanmore, north London, which has helped him get back on his feet.

"It was a slow process – he stood up, then he was walking with a frame, then walking with crutches," Dr Fine-Goulden said, who is a paediatric intensive care consultant.

"It took him five-and-a-half weeks to walk independently."

Harry's mum called his recovery "remarkable".

"Nobody expected him to recover as quickly and successfully as he has done, not the surgeon, not the neurologist, not the physiotherapists – but he did," she said.

"He had such a tremendous self-belief and self-confidence and I think that really helped."

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