Liam's story

Years ago, children with Liam’s disease would be lucky to see their second birthday… thanks to research these kids are now making it into their teens.

Baby Liam has spent much of his young life in hospital. At only five weeks old, he was admitted to hospital with a severe rash over 85 per cent of his tiny body and we knew that things just weren’t quite right.

After a series of immunological tests, we were none the wiser. And then the roller coaster ride really began. Liam started bleeding from the bowel and months later developed constant diarrhea, robbing him of his energy and vital body fluids.

Another round of tests followed and Liam was finally diagnosed at nine months of age with autoimmune enteropathy, a condition whereby the immune system attacks the cells that line the bowel.

We had no idea how aggressive the treatment would be.

Liam is given an immune suppressant twice a day …the same they give bone marrow transplant patients… to try and stop the immune system attacking his body. Because of this, we can’t place Liam in childcare of any kind. Even a minor infection such as a common cold can become life-threatening.

He also can’t eat like any other developing toddler, but is fed through a feeding tube directly into his stomach. As if these weren’t enough battles for our little baby boy to overcome, we have discovered his speech is delayed. We are at the hospital every week for speech therapy as well as countless outpatient appointments.

There is no known underlying cause of why Liam has autoimmune enteropathy. But the hospital has done so much for us over the last two years and I know that Liam would not be here today if it were not for the wonderful doctors that are doing everything they can to keep him well.

We are so grateful to the excellent care that the Royal Children’s Hospital provides. And we hold so much regard for medical research and what it can achieve. Years ago, children with Liam’s disease would be lucky to see their second birthday … thanks to research these kids are now making it into their teens. We hope that ultimately research will find a cure for our little boy and others just like him.

So thank you for asking us to be part of Running4Research. We would love for Liam to be sponsored and participate on the day (health pending of course) and both myself and my husband Angus look forward to participating as well…might need to start exercising though. This sounds like a fun way to spend a day whilst raising some much needed funds at the same time. We look forward to seeing a great crowd at this year’s Running4Research.

Natasha, Liam’s mum