{"id":5964,"date":"2017-03-15T13:08:10","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T02:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=5964"},"modified":"2017-03-20T14:28:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T03:28:08","slug":"run-for-the-kids-2017-jack-survives-deadly-brain-tumour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/run-for-the-kids-2017-jack-survives-deadly-brain-tumour\/","title":{"rendered":"Run for the Kids 2017: Jack survives deadly brain tumour"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A few days after brain surgery, Jack Miles was kicking a ball around the hospital. Now the Miles family is taking part in Run for the Kids to raise money for the RCH. Picture: Rob Leeson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally published in the Herald Sun March 2, 2017. <\/em><\/p>\n

Words by Kara Irving.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

One day little Jack was fighting fit, the next he was in hospital having surgery to remove a life threatening tumour from his brain.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Parents Alana and Reece knew something wasn\u2019t right last September when their son Jack began vomiting every night.<\/p>\n

The usually healthy child also had unexplained dizziness and would become unbalanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe noticed he\u2019d start grabbing onto walls,\u201d mum Alana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the type of kid that ran everywhere and that had stopped too.\u201d<\/p>\n

After countless doctors visits, the Werribee couple took Jack to the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

In a meeting with doctors they learned the worst \u2014 Jack had a 5cm tumour on his brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the worst day of my life,\u201d Reece said. \u201cWe kept thinking: \u2018did we do something wrong?\u2019<\/p>\n

Alana didn\u2019t want to believe the news: \u201cI thought the walls were caving in. I knew I\u2019d heard something bad but it wasn\u2019t registering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctors diagnosed Jack with children\u2019s tumour pilocytic astrocytoma.<\/p>\n

They knew the growth was near the cerebellum at the base of the brain and could be removed through surgery.<\/p>\n

But what they didn\u2019t know was why it happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept hearing that it was appallingly bad luck,\u201d Alana said. \u201cThey were wishing they could explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily the surgery was a success, with all of the tumour removed. He was cleared of any cancer, but would need scans for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

A few days after surgery he was kicking a ball around the hospital. Now the Miles family is taking part in Run for the Kids to raise money for the hospital that saved their son\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never done the run before, but we have donated every year,\u201d Alana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I could ever express how grateful I am. I\u2019ll never be able to repay them enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family friendly 4.8km and the long 14.6km courses will give runners a once-in-a-year opportunity to run through the Domain Tunnel, otherwise inaccessible by foot.<\/p>\n

More than 50 per cent of entry fees go directly to the Good Friday Appeal.<\/p>\n

Last year more than 27,000 Melburnians raised $1.7 million.<\/p>\n

The Werribee family wants to raise $2000 for the hospital ahead of the event.<\/p>\n

You can join us on Sunday\u00a0April 9 for Victoria\u2019s favourite fun run, the Herald Sun\/CityLink Run for the Kids.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The unique community event is the single biggest fundraising contributor to the Good Friday Appeal.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Miles has had surgery to remove a life threatening tumour from his brain. Now the Miles family is taking part in Run for the Kids to raise money for the RCH. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":5974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5964"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5971,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions\/5971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}