The boy kept alive by love: His body was riddled by deadly tumours and doctors said there was no hope. So 12-year-old Connah's grandparents launched their own quest for a miracle



When Connah Broom was about to turn five, 11 aggressive tumours were discovered in his body

Connah Broom bursts into the house after school, followed by his grandad, Jim. The youngster has a cut lip, a bloody leg and is splattered in mud. ‘Don’t be too alarmed,’ Jim reassures his wife Debbie, who rolls her eyes, produces an ice pack and presses it to her grandson’s face.



Connah has just played his first game of rugby. ‘It was brilliant!’ he says, his voice full of euphoria.



He turned 12 this week, and enjoys a schedule of sporting activities that would make an Olympian blanch. Football is a consuming passion. He plays in defence and is an avid Manchester City supporter.



Then there’s dance: rock ’n’ roll, street, jazz, modern, hip-hop. If he’s not rehearsing or performing in shows and competitions, then he is probably bouncing on his trampoline.

All of which is miraculous when you consider that, seven years ago, doctors advised his grandparents to start planning his funeral.

Connah has a rare form of cancer, neuroblastoma, which attacks the nervous system. He was about to turn five when 11 aggressive tumours were detected, spreading swiftly and virulently throughout his body.



Two courses of chemotherapy failed to abate them. Jim, 60, and Debbie, 58, were told to prepare for the worst. Modern medicine could not defeat the cancer, and Connah was going to die.



But not only has he stubbornly refused to oblige, he is also thriving, enjoying life and in robust health. More than that, ten of the tumours have disappeared. The primary tumour remains, but it is not growing. The Brooms’ most fervent hope is that it will stay dormant. Meanwhile, they are doing all they can to ensure that it does.

For when conventional treatment failed, Connah, Jim and Debbie Broom stepped in. Although doctors warned that there is no evidence that alternative medicine works on cancer victims, they scoured the internet for information, consulted parents of other children with the disease and travelled to the other side of the world looking for alternative therapies.



Their quest is recorded in a book, The Amazing Cancer Kid, co-written with Jonathan Chamberlain, author of The Cancer Survivor’s Bible.



For the past six years, the Brooms have been treating Connah themselves with Sonic Photo Dynamic Therapy, or SPDT, a controversial high-intensity laser treatment.



He also eats an entirely organic diet and all his water is filtered. The therapies have cost the Brooms £240,000 — but they have no regrets. ‘How could we?’ says Jim simply. ‘Just look at him. He’s enjoying his life.’



Connah pivots on his heels, practising his dance moves. ‘Am I a miracle boy?’ he asks, grinning.

‘No, you’re not,’ says Jim, smiling. ‘You’re just a normal boy who got well because we did the right things.’



The Brooms’ story is extraordinary on many levels, not only because of Connah’s bravery, resilience and tenacity, but also because his grandparents share these qualities.



When Connah was ten months old, his parents divorced and Connah’s dad, Chris, 32, won custody of his son. Chris is Jim and Debbie’s only child, and Connah is their only grandson.



For a while, the extended family lived together, Connah and his dad sharing an annexe to Debbie and Jim’s home near Prestatyn, North Wales. Then Chris, a chef, moved to Manchester with a new job, and for the past three years, Debbie and Jim, who have since down-sized to a bungalow in nearby Gronant, have been their grandson’s sole carers.



While Chris visits regularly, Connah’s mum does not see him at all. And Connah, it is plain to see, is the centre of his grandparents’ world.



They temper love and kindness with a no-nonsense attitude to homework, a bracing belief in the benefits of exercise and a conviction that the best way to overcome pain is not to indulge it, but to do something to take your mind off it.

Jim, gentle and softly-spoken, is a retired Army sergeant major who spent 24 years in the Forces. He now works on occasional contracts in the Middle East as a health and safety consultant for oil companies. Debbie, who had a hairdressing business, gave up work to look after Connah.



The indications that something was seriously wrong with him came when he was almost four. He began to suffer bouts of unexplained screaming and drenching sweats.

Grandparents, Debbie and Jim, posing here with Connah and their pet dog, Monty, were told to prepare for the worst when two courses of chemotherapy failed to save him

Doctors at the local hospital ran tests but found nothing. Meanwhile, the screaming and sweats continued. It was explained away as ‘attention-seeking’, ‘growing pains’ and finally ‘trapped wind’.



‘Then, one night, Connah woke screaming at 2am,’ Debbie recalls. ‘His bed was wringing wet. We took him to hospital and they diagnosed a blockage in the bowel. He was taking eight enemas a day to try to unblock it, and they took blood tests, too.



‘We were about to go on holiday, on a cruise. We were going to cancel it, but the doctors assured us we should go and could take Connah, too.



‘Halfway through the holiday, Chris rang to say the tests had revealed an abnormality in Connah’s blood, but the hospital had said we shouldn’t rush back.



‘Meanwhile, Connah’s symptoms continued. There would be bouts of screaming, then they’d subside and he’d play happily in the pool. We took him to the ship’s doctor, and he said we should take Connah to hospital as soon as we got home.’



From then on, events moved swiftly and alarmingly. Connah was admitted to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. There were scans, biopsies and a lumbar puncture.



‘Then they took us into the family room to break the news,’ remembers Jim. ‘We sat on one side, the oncologists on the other. They said: “He has cancer, neuroblastoma. Stage four. The prognosis is poor. There are ten secondary tumours and one primary.”



‘It was August 3, 2006. The chemotherapy was due to start on August 8. I was thinking: “They can’t be telling us our grandson is going to die. I can’t believe it. I won’t accept it.”



‘Part of me felt sorry for the doctors, having to break news like that every day. But part of me hated them because they hadn’t got it earlier. And because they were now telling us Connah would have to have this terrible treatment, then he was going to die.’



Football is a consuming passion. Connah plays in defence and is an avid Manchester City supporter

Debbie adds: ‘We’d had nine months of doctors, hospital visits and tests … and they’d sent us home and told us that nothing was wrong.



‘But he’d had cancer all the time, and it was like an octopus. It had embedded its head in Connah’s adrenal gland in his tummy, wrapped its tentacles round his organs and spread through his nervous system.



‘It was on the main artery by his heart, so they couldn’t operate. The only place it hadn’t reached was his head and below his knees.’



So the chemotherapy began. Throughout the treatment, either Jim or Debbie — or both of them — was at their grandson’s side.



‘We saw parents who fed off their child’s misery, who drained them,’ says Debbie.



‘But we kept saying: “This treatment will make you better.”



‘The nurses would say “It’s awful that he’s not going to make it”, and I’d say: “But he is. He is.” And then they’d say: “You have to realise he’s very, very ill. Have you told him he’s going to die?” And I’d say: “No. Because he’s not.”’



It seemed, however, at that stage, that the doctors’ pessimism was justified. The first session of chemotherapy made no impact on the tumours. Neither did a second.



Meanwhile, Jim and Debbie were advised to bring forward Connah’s fifth birthday celebrations because the doctors didn’t think he’d live long enough.



But Connah clung doggedly to life. Next, the doctors proposed a course of full-body radiation. But Debbie’s questing mind was unconvinced. She wanted to know what could happen.



Experts in nuclear medicine at University College Hospital, London, said the worst outcome was Connah would die from the effects of the radio-therapy. His chances were 50:50.



‘Even if he didn’t die, the doctor could not guarantee he wouldn’t suffer kidney failure. Or have a stroke. Or have to be fed by a tube for the rest of his life,’ remembers Debbie.



So instead of opting for radiation, the Brooms took a radical and contentious step. They decided to seek less abrasive ways of treating their grandson. And they began by consulting another parent whose son also had neuroblastoma and was prospering under an alternative regime.



Debbie had already eradicated all non-organic food from Connah’s diet. While he was in hospital having chemotherapy, she brought in her own ingredients, devised appetising menus and cooked healthy meals from scratch in the visitors’ kitchen. Baked bean volcanoes — organic potato, cauliflower and celeriac, blended and heaped into a mound with a crater full of organic baked beans — was a particular favourite.



‘The oncologists were scornful, saying: “Why are you wasting your money? It won’t work”,’ recalls Debbie. But she said it was her money so she’d spend it as she pleased.



Meanwhile, the Brooms added aloe vera and mangosteen, a tropical fruit juice, to Connah’s diet and gave him mineral and vitamin supplements — all to boost his immune system.



They also began fund-raising, which was vital as their next step was both brave and costly. Just over a year after Connah’s cancer was diagnosed, when he was six, they flew to Mexico to a clinic where he had his first Sonic Photo Dynamic Therapy. It cost £30,000 and there was no guarantee of success, but scans revealed improvements even after that first session.



Having undergone SPDT treatment in Mexico, Connah now has it at home after his grandparents bought the equipment.



Schoolboy Connah, from Gronant, Wales, shows off his Algae tablet

It comprises a special sauna, costing £650, which uses infra-red light to heat the body (unlike conventional saunas, it does not involve high temperatures); a laser which is beamed over the body and an ultrasound scanner, both from the U.S. and costing £1,500, plus a high-intensity light machine with six full-spectrum lights, which produce light that is very close to the sun’s natural light.



Jim constructed the light machine with a friend for £250. Debbie has learned how to administer the therapy, which Connah now has three times a week.



So how is it done? Connor first takes a light-sensitive drug, an algae (60 days’ worth of capsules, imported from Russia, cost £1,210), that is attracted to cancer cells. Then he lies on a bed with the high-intensity lights above him, which activate the algae, spurring them (the algae) to produce free radicals (or single oxygen atoms), which, so the theory goes, destroy the cancer cells.



Debbie focuses a laser over the tumour sites so the light penetrates deeper. Connah then has a sauna which, it is believed, helps to eliminate toxins from his body and stimulates his immune system.



The whole process takes a couple of hours, and while the Brooms are convinced of its efficacy — they contend that his boisterous good health and the disappearance of ten tumours is all the evidence they need — NHS experts remain sceptical to say the least.



Many oncologists argue that SPDT is useful on certain cancers where the tumours are close to the skin, but are doubtful about its value on deeper ones like neuroblastoma.



His grandparents were advised to bring forward Connah's fifth birthday celebrations because the doctors didn't think he'd live long enough

‘But when we asked Connah’s doctor why he had lived so long, she said: “I don’t know. Sometimes it just happens,”’ says Debbie.



Although experts claim Connah’s survival is down to simple good luck, the Brooms remain committed to his treatment and to finding new therapies that they hope will eradicate the cancer completely.



Their grandson, meanwhile, is the apple of their eye. ‘He is our life,’ says Debbie.



Connah is lively, reassuringly cheeky, and high-spirited. He shows me his bedroom — immaculate and spacious, with a world map on one wall and photos of himself, beaming, on the day he was mascot for Manchester City, on another. He obligingly runs through a couple of dance routines for me.



‘Haven’t you got any homework to do?’ asks Jim, which is the signal for Connah to recite the French phrases he’s just learnt.



Keeping him busy is his grandparents’ strategy for taking his mind off his illness. I ask Connah if he ever thinks about the cancer.



‘I remembered it when I went to my friend’s funeral. I cried,’ he says. ‘He had cancer, too. His name was Thomas. Do I miss him? Like mad!



‘And when I’m in bed, when I have time to myself, that’s when I think about the cancer.



‘I feel lucky and unlucky. Lucky ’cos I’m alive and not dead. But unlucky ’cos sometimes I think: “Am I going to make it to tomorrow?”’



Debbie’s eyes are blurring with tears. Jim tries to rally her. ‘You wouldn’t pick him out as the boy in the class who had cancer, would you?’ he asks.



And it’s true. You wouldn’t.



He and Debbie love their grandson with a passion so intense you can practically feel it emanate from them. They’d do anything for him — sacrifice all they have to fund his treatments if necessary.



Debbie looks around their bungalow with its airy conservatory and views of open countryside.



‘We’d even sell the house if we had to,’ she says. ‘After all, it’s only bricks and mortar. And Connah is our flesh and blood.’



We cannot know unequivocally that alternative therapies have made Connah well, but one thing is certain: love has a potent power of its own — and he has that in abundance.

