Leo the Lion: A mother’s dilemma

THE family of four-year-old brain cancer fighter Leo Bermejo from Almeria received a setback this week when an MRI scan revealed his tumour is still growing.

Over the past two years the four-year-old, known by his supporters as Leo the Lion, has undergone surgery at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in the UK and travelled  to Oklahoma in the United States for cutting edge proton-beam therapy.

But Leo’s latest brain scan this week has confirmed the tumour is growing quickly and is now 8.8cm in length. At the previous scan, ten weeks ago, it was 5.6cm.

Mum Karen has sent the test results to Alder Hay and a hospital in Pamplona but said, “I do not know what the doctors will say when they receive the scans. It might just be game over… I really don’t know.

“Leo has been progressing; he’s speaking and moving more and more.

“If Leo can have the tumours removed with a guarantee of him not being more damaged then I think we need to go for it.

“Leo is showing no signs of giving up and I think he deserves a final chance.”

Karen added, “I know people will think I should just give up and let nature take its course, but I can´t if there is a final chance. I know people will talk and have their opinions that what I am doing is wrong… but at the end of the day he is my boy and I have to do in my heart what I feel is right for him.”