Our brave son’s cancer has returned for fourth time – he’s been through hell, we’re hoping to raise £1m for treatment
DILLAN RAMSEY-AKSEHIR has celebrated his fifth birthday surrounded by family, friends and kids from reception class.
But there was no party food, cake or sweets because of his strict diet — and the brave little lad has not been able to attend school despite enrolling last September.
This was also the first birthday in four years that he has not been in hospital, having being diagnosed with leukaemia aged 18 months.
Most of his young life has been gruelling rounds of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, lumbar punctures, stem cell therapies and a highly invasive bone marrow transplant.
Earlier this month mum Amy, 36, and dad Ozzy, 32, a city trader, received the devastating news that the cancer had returned for a third time — and there were no more options available on the NHS.
Amy, originally from Manchester but now based in London, is crowdfunding to raise £1million to take Dillan to the US in October where he will undergo a revolutionary new cancer treatment.
The family have six weeks to raise the money and will relocate to Washington for ten to 12 months while Dillan has treatment.
His cause has been backed by celebrities including Michelle Keegan and husband Mark Wright, soap stars Catherine Tyldesley, Anthony Quinlan and Nikki Sanderson and actress Charlotte Dawson.
Reality TV star Ashley Cain and his former partner Safiyya Vorajee, who lost their eight-month-old daughter Azaylia to leukaemia in 2021, have also backed the cause.
The Manchester City team have raised awareness of the story and Olivia Naylor, partner of City player John Stones and a friend of Amy’s, has donated £20,000 to the GoFundMe page.
To mark Dillan’s birthday, England defender John and former Premier League goalie Shay Given joined forces to launch appeals on their Instagram pages, offering to enter all donors into a prize draw for VIP tickets to a Newcastle v Chelsea match in November.
Gut-punching
When we spoke to Amy the day before her son’s birthday last Wednesday, she was at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she has spent much of the last four years, including her pregnancy with Dillan’s three-month-old sister Leyla.
She told us the latest blow came out of the blue and added: “We had been in a good place since my daughter was born in May.
“Dillan hadn’t had any symptoms or illnesses, so to hear the cancer was back in his bone marrow and that his chance of a cure is very small was gut-punching.
“Dillan’s been through hell already so this is heartbreaking.”
Amy, who is also mum to Aiyla, three, first noticed something was wrong in May 2020, when her football-mad boy stopped wanting to kick a ball and started to limp.
“I took him to the doctors and they reassured me it would probably be a sprain and would heal within two weeks,” she said.
“It didn’t, it got worse and soon he just didn’t want to walk.”
With the UK in lockdown, it was hard to get a doctor’s appointment so Amy went private and was told Dillan likely had a hairline fracture.
Noting her son was pale with bruised eyes and swollen lymph nodes, she persisted and was finally sent to A&E and The Royal London Hospital, where an X-ray confirmed there was no fracture.
After a blood test, medics told Amy to call partner, Oguz Aksehir, known as Ozzy.
Amy said: “They took us into a side room and told us that Dillan had leukaemia.
“He had to be taken to Great Ormond Street Hospital straight away and was placed in intensive care.”
The couple were relieved to hear there was a good chance of a full recovery.
“He was given a three-year chemotherapy plan, which had a 93 per cent cure rate, so we were optimistic,” she said.
“The first six months after the diagnosis was awful.
“He had seizures, he lost the ability to walk and lost his hair.
“Then he had a bad fungal infection in his chest which had to be cut out, so he missed a month of the chemo and we don’t know if that has contributed to his relapse.”
Two years into the treatment, in August 2022, as Dillan was undergoing yet another lumbar puncture and spinal chemotherapy, the couple got more devastating news.
Amy said: “The doctor told us his spinal fluid sample had a really high amount of cancer and that Dillan was going to need a bone marrow transplant and radiation.”
A campaign was launched to find a bone marrow match, which was backed by actress Michelle, who Amy knew from school, and Mark.
It resulted in 12,000 people signing up to the stem cell register DKMS and a donor was found.
Dillan underwent a bone marrow transplant in December. Sadly, it did not work and in March he relapsed.
In May, just a week before sister Leyla was born, Dillan began CAR-T Therapy, which programmes the patient’s own immune cells to target the cancer.
Amy said: “I was living on the transplant ward in Great Ormond Street for most of my pregnancy.
“Dillan had to stay in hospital for three weeks afterwards, so I didn’t actually see him until two weeks after Leyla was born.”
Despite the therapy, Amy and Ozzy were told there was still 35 per cent cancer in Dillan’s bone marrow and that another transplant would not be possible on the NHS.
All the doctors could now offer was palliative care.
Amy and Ozzy are now desperately trying to raise funds to get Dillan to Washington for more advanced Car-T Therapy, which will target three strains of the cancer rather than the one that the UK version attacks.
Amy said: “Dilly’s been been amazing. He’s always smiling and laughing.”
The couple are prepared to fight to the end for their little boy.
Amy added: “Even if it’s the smallest chance, I’d do anything to save my little boy. We have to keep trying.”