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A seven-year-old cancer victim is being given a final chance to beat the disease - thanks to his little three-year-old brother.
Kenzie Atkinson has been fighting leukaemia since he was four and has already defeated it - and a bout of meningitis - once before.
But a routine check up revealed the leukaemia had returned and the only potential treatment in the UK is a bone marrow transplant.
Kenzie's three-year-old brother Chase has now agreed to donate his own bone marrow in the hopes of saving his sibling's life.
Close: Kenzie Atkinson, seven, pictured right, is about to undergo a bone marrow transplant after his three-year-old brother Chase, pictured left, agreed to be his donor
Chase will undergo the operation to donate his bone marrow to Kenzie next month - who will then hopefully be able to produce the white blood cells his body desperately needs.
But if the treatment is unsuccessful, the family will have to start looking abroad at other treatments not currently available in the UK.
Their mother Gemma Atkinson, 31, from Bristol, said: 'Kenzie has been very brave. I have explained everything to him because I think he had a right to know.
'I heard him telling his friend that he was going to have an operation and if that doesn’t work he would be going to heaven.
'He is only seven - he shouldn’t have to be thinking about things like that.'
Kenzie was first diagnosed with the horrific disease when he was just four, but bravely fought it off with the help of months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Hopeful: Mother Gemma Atkinson, pictured with her two sons, hopes the bone marrow transplant with enable her eldest son Kenzie to create the white blood cells his body desperately needs
He then developed meningitis during his treatment, forcing him to stay in Bristol Children’s Hospital for a month.
Having battled through two life-threatening illnesses, his family were delighted when doctors finally told him he was clear of cancer.
But last November a routine check-up revealed the leukaemia had returned.
Mother-of-four Mrs Atkinson said: 'It’s been quite hard. When Kenzie was first diagnosed with leukaemia I also had a five-week-old baby to look after.
'As first I thought it was just a virus. I had taken him in for blood tests and a few days later I had a letter saying he was anaemic.
Last chance: The bone marrow transplant from his brother Chase is Kenzie's final chance of treating the illness in the UK. If it is unsuccessful, the family will need to raise £10,000 so he can undergo a pioneering therapy in the U.S.
'We went into hospital, but I hadn’t realised what I was taking him in for. A doctor took me to a little room and told me. I was obviously very upset.'
Mrs Atkinson has been warned that if the bone marrow transplant fails, the NHS does not offer any further treatment.
But she has learned of a pioneering therapy called Beam Light, which has helped children like Kenzie, but is only available in the U.S.
The therapy involves a photosensitiser drug which once in the body reacts to light by producing a highly destructive form of oxygen which can destroy a tumour.
The treatment would cost up to £10,000 and Gemma’s friends are fundraising - just in case Chase’s bone marrow donation is not successful.
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