Bradley"BOB"Whall was born 21st.August1997.He was one of 8 grandchildren and i love them all the same.Brad was born with downs syndrome and at 3 months old had to have operation for hole in the heart which apparently is quite common in children with downs,he came throught that with flying colors.I am his paternal grandmother myself and my husband took him in on 21st August 2001 mum couldnt cope,my son went and picked him up from home and brought him to us ,on a temporary basis so we thought.Within the next few days we were asked if he could stay with us for a while as the rest of the family had to be sorted out,Brad has an older brother Ryan who is 12 now and also twin brothers who have different dad they are now adopted we dont see them anymore.After a few months we were asked if we wanted to foster Brad we didnt hesitate and my son was all for it under the circumstances.I got brad in to nursery then into main school which was for special needs children he loved everything about school.2002 was a good year we enjoyed having brad with us xmas came that was good all his toys he loved it,we had new year at home and friends and family came and we let brad stay up cos his dad was here.Dad and the rest of the family went home next day we were all tired so we had a lazy day me grandad and Brad.For a couple of days brad was making noises very hard to understand what was wrong ,took him to doctor probably wind this went on for 4 days i wasnt getting any answers,this was not my gp it was local medicare.By the Friday i had enough took him one last time said if they cant see whats wrong i'll go to hospital anyway this g.p. wasnt happy said he needed blood tests.took him to our gp on Monday hesent us to hospital where blood tests told us Brad had Leukaemia.From colchester we took him to Addenbrookes where we stayed till March 2004.In that time i came home for a weekend break and spent time in bed with exhaustion but i had to get back to Brad .This was just the beginning of Brads life with Leukaemia there is so much he was put through in that time,hospital was a second family to us but even they couldnt save him although i will say it wasnt for lack of trying their devotion to me and Brad was outstanding and all i can say is if it wasnt for all of them i would not have had Brad for as long as i did ,they taught me so much that i tended Brad myself most of the time .Medication changing gastroscopy tubes and trachy tubes ventilation it was all part of my days but it felt right for me to do this,While in hospital we had a special birthday for him at Acorn House which was on site run by The Sick Childrens Trust who accomodate families of the children that have a life threatening illness.They were lifesavers cos if they were not on site i could not have stayed by Brads side all that time.He had a special day set up for him by the nurses and doctors on p.i.c.u.they got in touch with the make a wish foundation and arranged for Bob the builder to come and visit Brad cos we knew he was not going to be with us for long we all had the best day ever with Bob he came from the show in London just to see Brad what an emotional day never forget it even all the staff were overwhelmed by it all.Brad was inundated with presents from Bob his bed was overloaded.To round off the day i asked Bob to go and visit the other children in the hospital and they all loved itWe had some really bad times in Addies many times we thought we lost him but he sprang back upThe worst time i can remember was in April 2003 he started refluxing a lot and it went on for ages eventually they said his gullet was crumbling there was nothing they could do cos an operation could be dangerous cos he was very low on immunity and he might not make it ,we had to wait 5days cos he was sedated anyway,to see if he got through this bit,and he did.He stayed sedated for 2and half weeks but it was hard to get him off ventilation but we did after 3weeks.