The parents of a six-month-old baby have been left overjoyed at finally being able to bring him home after he was diagnosed with leukaemia at just a few weeks old. Sophie, 34, and Luke Kitcher, 33, welcomed little Ralphie into the world on October 5 but were devastated when they were told he only had a 30 percent chance of surviving after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. In 2021, the couple suffered another devastating loss after their son Huxley died during surgery to repair a hole in his intestine.

But the couple from Ware, Hertfordshire, were ecstatic to learn that Ralphie is in remission after two rounds of chemotherapy were successful.

Sophie said: “He’s our inspiration. He’s just a little baby going through all this, battling on.

“Watching what he’s gone through, I wouldn’t have survived it. He’s shown so much strength.”

Sophie first suspected something was wrong when Ralphie wouldn’t settle at night. She suspected trapped wind or colic and took him to a doctor.

It took three doctor’s appointments and Ralphie developing a growing cyst on his head and bruise-like marks across his body before she was finally told to go to A&E.

At the news that Ralphie needed to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) in London, where Sophie’s first son Huxley had died, she was shattered.

She said: “I was petrified to fall pregnant again after Huxley died. We had testing done before Ralphie was born.

“All the tests showed it was just bad luck that we’d had another incredibly poorly baby. It was nothing we’d done, nothing genetically wrong, just bad luck.”

During the five days of chemotherapy that makes up one “round” for Ralphie, he was hooked up to the drugs for eight hours a day.

During his chemo and recovery, Ralphie has not been allowed outside as his immune system is compromised from the drugs and is at risk of infection.

He gets a raised temperature and develops mouth and bum ulcers that become sore.

But thankfully Ralphie is now allowed home after beating cancer.

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Sophie said: “After all we’ve been through, nothing can break us now, we’re so strong. We just keep going and hoping.

“I hang onto the fact that Ralphie won’t remember this when he’s older, despite how traumatising it’s been for us.”

AML is a rare type of cancer, with only around 3,100 people diagnosed with it each year in the UK, according to the NHS.

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