Liverpool fan Matthew Gaut is preparing to run from London to Paris in memory of his son Harry, who tragically lost his brave battle against leukaemia aged six.
Harry was initially diagnosed with ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukaemia) back in May 2013, though by 2016 this had progressed into AML (acute myeloid leukaemia).
After battling the condition for over three years, Harry suffered a relapse and he eventually lost his cruel fight with the disease in September 2016.
Mr Gaut told the Liverpool Echo: "Harry had spent three weeks in intensive care at St Georges Hospital, Tooting, where we lost him. On the morning of his passing, we went back to the Royal Marsden in Sutton where his bed was waiting for him.
"No-one expected him not to come back. The nurses were so kind, and one in particular hugged us both and said, 'you'll never get over it'. She was right of course, but you do learn to live with it."
Mr Gaut admitted he thought Harry "would be OK" after discovering there was a 95 per cent survival rate from his initial ALL diagnosis. "He was near the end of his treatment, three years in, and then his blood counts dropped. That’s when you know it has come back or it is something worse. Sadly, it was something much worse and then it went downhill."
Following his relapse in 2016, Harry had undergone his only option of curing him of the disease - a stem cell transplant. But despite finding a match, his body reacted negatively to the treatment, developing graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), where white blood cells from the donor attacked his own cells.
"We lost Harry eight days after his sixth birthday," Mr Gaut recalls. "Following on from that, you search for something to cling onto and that’s normally something charitable.
“I sat back and there was never going to be anything I could contribute, so you leave it to the experts. I can’t cure it but I can run, so maybe we will try that. Harry is gone but would be proud of what we’re doing. If whatever we do benefits one child, then it would be entirely worth it."
Mr Gaut, 47, paid tribute to Harry on the fifth anniversary of his passing by cycling from London to Paris, raising money for Cure Leukaemia - a national blood cancer charity which helps patients receive life-saving treatment, as well as providing financial backing to pioneering medical trials.
This time he plans to do the same excursion, only without the bike, as he and eight others bid to run from the UK capital to Paris with his goal of aiming £100,000 to support the cause.
“For me, it is a tremendous honour to be associated with a charity that embraces you," he said. "They call it the Care Leukaemia family, and that’s what it feels like. You really would walk over broken glass for these people and it is lovely.”
Mr Gaut was joined in his last effort by Professor Wynn, 57, a paediatric haematologist from Liverpool. “I cycled with Matt last year and I am inspired by his response to his loss," Professor Wynn said. "For Matt, his fundraising opens the possibility that other families won’t have to go through what he went through. I wish his story was not repeated so often and hope for the future we can cure more kids."
Both avid Liverpool supporters, the pair were connected by their experiences, as well as their choice of football team.
“Football is a great unifier,” Mr Gaut added. “You don’t know the dad by the hospital bed opposite you with a little kid from the name Adam, but if he is wearing a Liverpool shirt you know you have something in common. Football gets you out of your current reality for 90 minutes.
"Instead of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ for me that becomes ‘You Will Never Run Alone’ as that is what I am singing along when I go running in the darkness. We will have that sung a lot on the way to Paris.”
Fundraising details:
To support Matthew Gaut's Cure Leukaemia campaign, click here.
