Jamie Inglis returns home after treatment in Germany (From York Press)

Jamie Inglis returns home after treatment in Germany

11:00am Thursday 18th October 2012 in News Exclusive By Kate Liptrot, kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk

BRAVE Jamie Inglis has arrived home safely on a private plane after two months of pioneering cancer treatment in Germany.

Seven-year-old Jamie and his parents John and Vicky touched down at Sherburn airfield yesterday afternoon following a three-hour flight from Germany, where Jamie is undergoing lifesaving treatment for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma.

As Jamie’s immune system is vulnerable due to the medical intervention he is having for neuroblastoma, a private plane gave him the best chance of travelling back without picking up an infection. Following a twitter campaign to get the Lord Deramore’s Primary School pupil home, entrepreneurs Sarah Jane and Steve Thomson, of the First News children’s newspaper, offered their plane.

Mr Thomson, who also piloted the plane, said it was the most difficult landing he had made in two years due to a strong cross wind and the relatively short runway at Sherburn, but after a turbulent approach and bumpy landing, the family were able to safely make their way home to Kelfield.

John said: “It’s really good to be back and feels surreal to be brought back in a private plane. It feels like we have been brought back to our back yard. It’s amazing we have been helped out, we didn’t know if it would come to fruition. Jamie loved it.

“Jamie is doing really well. He’s really spirited and has got a lot of energy and is eating well.”

Jamie said he really enjoyed going in the plane and said about the landing: “We had a funny feeling in our tummy because it was bumpy”.

He said he was pleased to be home and Vicky said he has asked whether he would always travel to hospital in the private plane from now on.

Jamie has successfully gone through the very risky first stage of his treatment in which he was given a stem cell transplant from his father to give him a donor-derived immune system to help him fight the cancer and was kept in an isolation ward for four weeks.

He is due to return to Germany at the end of the month for the next stage of antibody treatment after which he will have to return to hospital in Tubingen, near Stuttgart, for about a week every month for treatment. Jamie’s immune system is expected to have been built up significantly by this stage.

The trip home will give the family much-needed respite from the hospital. However, they have received disappointing news that their three-year-old daughter Poppy, who is staying with her grandparents in Oxfordshire, will be unable to join them as she has a cold which put Jamie’s weak immune system at risk.

The family is working to raise £250,000 to pay for the medical trial, which has not been funded by the NHS and is believed by oncologists to give the best chance of survival.

They hope to find another private plane for their return to Germany. John said: “We will have to get another plane to get back. Hopefully by the time we return again Jamie should be out of the danger zone.”

To support the twitter campaign to find a flight back to Germany, follow @jamiesappeal and to donate visit justgiving.com/jamiesappeal