'We were told if we didn't go to A&E our nine-year-old would have gone to bed and not woken up'

A nine-year-old boy was rushed to hospital after complaining of headaches in the run-up to Christmas.

Henri Brammer underwent major surgery after doctors found "a ball of pus" on his brain. When the schoolboy first began suffering headaches last December, his mum Carly initially put them down to festive excitement.

But when he began to complain of eye pain and became lethargic, Carly knew something was wrong. She took Henri to hospital in Stoke on December 19 and a CT scan showed he needed major surgery.

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He was rushed to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool the following day and underwent three surgical procedures. Doctors told Carly that her son had suffered a viral infection which had resulted in Strep A and empyema of the brain.

After spending a month in hospital recovering, Henri was eventually allowed home. Now, he has pledged to raise funds for the hospital that saved his life, the Liverpool ECHO reports. As part of his fundraising efforts, young Henri went to school dressed as his hero - the surgeon who performed his surgery.

"It was his idea," said mum Carly. "They did a dress up as your hero day in school to raise money for his fundraising page and he asked to go as Doctor Ali so I got the scrubs and printed off the picture and he won over the whole school."

Henri arrived at Alder Hey on December 20 and had his first five-hour procedure that same day. The next two came a week after the other due to further complications.

Carly said the procedure was "difficult" due to the placement of the fluid but that had it been left, it would have been "dangerous". She was soon told her brave son had suffered a viral