Many of you already know Oscar and his story, but for those who don’t here goes!
Oscar is 11, has just embarked on his next chapter starting secondary school. He inherited NF2 from his mum, Jo and was diagnosed about 5 years ago, mainly due to problems he was experiencing in his left foot.
So since he got on the merry go round, we know Oscar has bilateral vestibular schwannoma and a frontal lobe meningioma in his head. He has 2 nerve sheath schwannomas on L5 and S1 and an Ependymoma on C2.
The 2 schwannoma cause several problems for Oscar in that we have a significant loss of nerve function in his left leg, leading to foot drop, club foot and muscle atrophy and he wears orthotics shoes due to a slight height difference and foot size difference & foot turn.
But Oscar does not let any of this bother him, nor his MRIs or clinic days nor upcoming surgery to correct his foot deformity.
In fact, Oscar really only cares about his football!
He is an avid Nottingham Forest season Ticket holder (who is delighted now he is watching premiership league games), went to Wembley to see his team win promotion and has seen England play several times. And rarely misses a home match and is hoping to get to some away matches this year too! Look out for him on the terraces, probably singing his heart out!!! He has met several players over the years. His favourite player is Jack Colback. Oscar’s dream is to become the first premier league player to have NF2! (he likes to dream BIG …. and why not!)
Other than that Oscar, despite severe foot problems, plays football competitively for his local team Beeston FC U12s and is regularly at training midweek and on the pitch for a match Saturday mornings. He gives 110% because he has to with the difficulties he faces with his mobility, but he is well supported by his coach and his team. And he just loves the game and the camaraderie of it all. His team have won a few matches in their league which always pleases Oscar.
He was delighted this July also to be selected for the school football team before he left in year 6, while they didn’t win their match it certainly wasn’t for the want of trying & a few lucky passes by the opponents!
So onwards to secondary school, Oscars favourite subject is PE so he is hoping to make more of an impact and maybe even get selected for their team to play against other local schools. His recent diagnosis of the Ependymoma though means he has had to curtail use of football headers & will miss trialling Rugby. Its not often we let NF2 define what we can do but this was under doctors orders.
Oscar wears “boot” style trainers and an ankle brace to help with mobility. In Y6 sports day he even managed to run the whole 400m school running track & helped support others with running it too! He did not give up and would not let others give up either!
—
This blog has been created as a way to share stories, ideas, positivity and even sprinkle in some science. Everyone is welcome here and warmly encouraged to join us in contributing to our community through this blog. If you would like to add anything (anything at all!) then please contact myself, Grace Gregory, at grace@nf2biosolutions.org and we can pop it up on our blog. Watch this space and please join in helping us all connect and share with one another!