Baby given three months to live

Doctors found four-year-old John Mark Riding, our Baby of the Year in 1998, had cancer just two weeks ago and his parents today revealed they had been told there is nothing doctors can do.

Now Jacqueline Sanderson and John Riding, from Darwen, are pinning their hopes on taking him to America for what could be a life saving operation.

They need to raise £500,000 to get him there and pay for the operation and have a matter of weeks to raise the money, after revealing doctors in England told them he has just three months to live.

The couple say specialists at the world renowned MD Anderson Centre in Houston, Texas, have performed a successful operation on a 10-year-old girl with the same condition, a brain stem glioma.

The tumour is especially difficult to operate on because it is actually inside the brain stem. Jacqueline told the Evening Telegraph how a trip to accident and emergency with John Mark two weeks ago had turned into her worst nightmare.

She said: "It was just two weeks ago that it all happened.

"He just suddenly became ill, he couldn't stand up and he was having trouble speaking so we took him to the hospital.

"They looked at him and then just told us there was nothing they could do and he had three months to live."

She said: "I didn't believe it and I still don't believe it. I certainly don't believe that there's nothing they can do. I'll take him to America so they can do anything really, I don't care.

"They have got to do something. Even if they have to take out my brain and put it into him, I would let them.

"I don't care."

The family are trying to make every second count with John Mark, who will be five in December.

Jacqueline said: "He is getting everything he wants. If he says he wants something, I just go and buy it at the moment.

"His speech is really slow and he is quite bad tempered, but I don't care. He can stay like it, if it means we still have him."

John Mark has had radiology treatment at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol to try and halt the spread of the tumour, and the family hope to fly to Texas within a month, if they can raise the money.

A spokesman for the MD Anderson Centre said: "We are fully aware of the procedure for intrinsic pontine glioma, or brain stem glioma.

"We have operated on numerous patients with this condition before."

The family, including John Mark's 20-month-old brother, moved to Cornwall from their Beech Grove home, Darwen, three years ago, but Jacqueline's two sisters still live in the area.

"She said friends and relatives have raised £5,000 in just four days for the trip through raffles and donations.

They are planning to set up a John Mark Riding Fund bank account for donations to be paid into for John Mark's trip.

John Mark was chosen out of 1,000 local babies for the Baby of the Year title four years ago, just before his first birthday, in the up-to 18 months category.