11-year-old Henry was diagnosed with a Germ Cell Brain Tumour. Henry has had to have high doses of Proton Beam Therapy and endure long hospital stays.
Henry’s dream was for a magical VR day with his family and a VR headset with the help of Immersive Gamebox.  The Dream Factory made Henry’s dream game true allowing him to make memories that he will cherish forever.
Please read Henry’s story below written by Henry’s mum:
Henry was diagnosed with a Germ Cell Brain Tumour in August 2022 after having headaches. He was blue lighted to Addenbrookes where he had brain surgery to release the fluid from his brain and had a Hickman line fitted. He was put on a high dose of steroids to try to help reduce the swelling and was on these for 2 months. Henry had to wait 2 weeks for the treatment to start and within this time the tumour had doubled in size. Henry started emergency Chemo and had 4 rounds of chemo, 2 which were high dose with stem cell rescue, and this meant Henry was in a reverse barrier room only seeing mum and dad for 3 weeks each time. Henry then went straight to the London Hospital for 7 weeks for proton bean therapy where he had a face mask fitted which was very traumatic for him. Henry spent 7 weeks in London over Christmas and ended up being admitted to hospital on boxing day has he developed the flu.
Treatment finished in February 2023 and Henry started a gradual return to school.  One week into school Henry developed a limp and was in severe pain at night times.  After numerous trips to the hospital Henry had a MRI and the Henry had relapsed and the Tumor had spread to his spine. We received a call from Addenbrookes stated that we could either give quality of life or give Henry further treatment which would give Henry 10-20% chance of getting through. As parents and giving the best chance possible we chose to continue with treatment.

Henry went through a further 4 rounds of chemo and then 1 high dose of chemo with stem cell rescues and henry was in a reverse barrier room for 6 weeks only seeing mum and dad. Through this period Henry was very unwell, he had severe mucositis, was on morphine and ketamine for pain relief, could not eat so was on TPN and feeding tube. After this treatment Henry went on to have a further 7 weeks of Proton Beam Therapy in Addenbrookes mean more time away from home staying in an outbuilding in Addenbrookes. Due to the amount of treatment Henry needed numerous blood and platelet transfusions. Henry finished treatment in August 2023, following this Henry was in recovery continuing to have transfusions and regular checks. In November 2023 Henry was told he was in remission and rang the bell in December 2023.
Through all of this when recovering at home, if Henry ever got a temperature Henry was admitted to hospital and would need tests to rule out any infection, this happened on numerous occasions. Henry did not attend school for the whole of year 4 and gradually did a face return to school starting in year 5.
Henry returned to school gradually but still attending regular checks ups for hearing, eye tests, hormones and MRI’s.

Henry is now on daily growth injections due to now not producing growth hormones.