Brave boy, 3, has spent more time in hospital than at home following tragic diagnosis

The family of a brave little boy who is on end-of-life care after being diagnosed with leukaemia during the pandemic say he has spent more time in hospitals than at home.

Three-year-old Raphael from Stretford was born in March 2020 and his parents Michaela Platt and Vincent Mock, both 33, said they had a ‘wonderful’ first few months together until they started to notice lumps on their baby’s body.

In December 2020, at just eight months old, Raphael was diagnosed with infant ALL type Leukaemia, a type of blood cancer in children with an excess number of lymphocytes in their blood which struggle to fight off infections.

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“We noticed there were lumps under his arms and on his head,” Michaela, who works as a childminder, told the M.E.N. “His lymph nodes were enlarged, he was really, really tired and just very lethargic. I reached out to the GP first as I didn’t want to take him straight to the hospital during the lockdown considering he was a vulnerable child.

“We went to the GP a number of times as he just wasn’t getting better. We thought it was an infection at first but the antibiotics just weren’t working. Eventually, one GP referred us to Manchester Royal Infirmary and that’s what led to the diagnosis. The next day he went straight into surgery.”

Raphael spent seven months in hospital during which only one person could come to visit him at a time as he underwent gruelling chemotherapy.

“It was tough,” Michaela explained. “During that time, I also got quite poorly with Covid so I couldn’t go to see him and we all had to be really careful. His dad had to come out of work to look after him. It was really difficult. I was