A cancer-stricken tot is facing the battle of his life as he prepares for an experimental bone marrow transplant which could save him.
Two-year-old Kai has been in and out of hospital after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer at just eight months old.
The youngster suffers from infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) which has sadly caused him to lose an eye.
But doctors in Scotland said they can do little more for the tot who has fought valiantly with the condition almost all of his short life.
His desperate parents, Calvin Laidlaw, 49, and Pam Neilson, 38, will now take their son from Edinburgh to London for an experimental bone marrow transplant.
It comes with no guarantees – but it is their only hope of saving their precious son’s life.
Pam said: “We have been told by doctors that we should seriously consider not getting Kai any more treatment and just enjoy our last few months with him.
“We had been hoping that if we could just get him through his first few years then his chances of survival would be better.
“But if you could see Kai now, he is so cheeky and always laughing. He seems just like any other toddler.
“My husband and I just can’t give up on him.”
Brave Kai has faced gruelling treatment, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, to fight the disease after being diagnosed in September 2013.
In February 2014 he had to have his left eye removed as the condition had spread to a part of the eye which was dangerously close to his brain – making radiotherapy unsafe.
He was given a round implant, which was put inside his eye socket and wrapped in a donor sclera before his eye lid was closed over.
Kai was then given a prosthetic eye lens, similar to a contact lens but made of acrylic material.
Pam said: “The chances of survival are not great – but what choice do we have?
“I have to give my little boy the chance of a future. The only thing he has ever known is hospitals and I feel I would be letting him down if I didn’t try.
“We are being told by everyone that Kai won’t survive, but if you look at him he’s just such a perfect little boy.
“I asked the doctors to be brutally honest as we don’t have time not to be – only months left maybe.
“I think if we didn’t try, we would always say ‘What if we had done the treatment?'”
Follow-up treatment will need to be delivered by the experts at Great Ormond Street due to the experimental nature of the procedure.
But the family has been placed in a difficult situation as Kai’s dad Calvin, 49, might not be able to travel with them as he has progressive multiple sclerosis (MS).
Calvin was diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 2009 and his condition had deteriorated so much by the time Kai was born in 2012 that he was forced to use a wheelchair.
That means he would need a carer and specialised accommodation in London, which the hospital is unable to provide.
Pam, 38, said: “We have been told that the hospital can’t provide the facilities he needs so we can be a family.
“We will need each other and Kai may not survive.
“Doctors were saying ‘why can’t Calvin stay at home in Edinburgh while we went to London?’.
“But what if we are away for months and Kai doesn’t make it? That would finish a parent off.”
The family has launched a bid to fund their trip to London.
Family and friends have rallied have raised thousands of pounds for CLIC Sargent and the Sick Kids hospital where Kai has received such good care.
To make a donation to support the family, readers are asked to visit www.gogetfunding.com/project/kai-s-krusade
