Mighty Mossy

Amos (or Mossy, as we called him) was an incredible, beautiful boy, who lit up every room that he went into with his contagious smile and cheeky laugh. The best word to describe Amos would be BRIGHT! Amos had a thirst and passion for knowledge and facts and for finding out everything he could about the world around him. He was a little whirlwind of fun and laughter and pure happiness.

Family life was very busy! We always joked that Amos and his little sister Aria had better social lives than us with all their parties, clubs and play dates every week. As primary school teachers, our weeks were busy with teaching little ones, juggling school and nursery and then coming home to our 2 little joys at home, but family was always the priority in our lives. Weekends were for adventures and we packed them full with trips into London visiting museums and parks and exploring new places. We were the four amigos and life was so happy.

In the few weeks leading up to Amos’ diagnosis he developed a bad cough. It was a cold and wintry February and everyone seemed to be catching some cough or cold, so we didn’t think much of it as children are forever catching all the bugs. During the half term holidays we went for a family trip to London Zoo. It was the first time we had been there and we were all so excited. It was a tiring day but Amos seemed to be more tired than usual - he was normally a very energetic and bouncy little boy, always climbing things and jumping around. He seemed exhausted by the end of the day and Nathan (his dad) had to give him a shoulder carry back to the tube station. We again, just thought he was tired as we had been doing lots during the half term.

His cough continued and we became concerned about his breathing, so we booked a GP appointment and took him in. The GP didn’t seem too concerned, mentioned that there was a lot of illnesses going around at the moment, listened to his chest and said he had a chest infection. Amos started a course of antibiotics and life continued as normal. I checked with school to see how he was but they assured me that he was running around and playing as usual…which he did right up until a few days before his diagnosis.

After finishing his course of antibiotics, Amos still didn’t seem right and we’d noticed a small bump on his chest, as well as noticing him losing his appetite, looking like he was losing weight and just seeming very tired. We took him to the GP again who again said that he had a chest infection, but that is was a very ‘deep infection’ which was why it was taking a while to clear. He prescribed a 3 day course of stronger antibiotics and arranged to see him again a week later to see how he was doing. When I went to collect the antibiotics I was unable to get them in any of the pharmacies and I tried lots! There was a shortage of the antibiotic, so we decided that the next day we would go to the local hospital to get some from the hospital pharmacy.

The next day Amos’ breathing was not very good at all, despite him telling us that he was fine (he always said that), so my husband took him into A&E. What we thought would be a quick check up and some antibiotics, turned into them being there for the whole day. Amos had blood tests done, followed by an x-ray to check his chest. Originally the doctors thought he had pneumonia as the x-ray results had come back abnormal, but after having a CT scan done, it confirmed that he actually had a mass/tumour growing all across his lungs in his chest. We will never forget the look on the doctors’ faces when they asked us to come into the small side room to discuss the test and scan results.