Boy, 9, battling recurring brain tumors, climbs to the top of Mount Everest to raise money for charity – as proud mum says, he ‘never gives up’

A nine-year-old boy who spent years of his life battling recurring brain tumors is now climbing to the top of Mount Everest to raise money for charity.

Arthur Middleton, from Lincolnshire, had a difficult start to life when he was born prematurely at 26 weeks in 2014.

Just before his third birthday, Arthur’s parents, Claire and Henry, noticed that he was having seizures, feeling nauseous, slurring his words and losing the use of his right hand.

After an MRI scan, the couple was then told that their son had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.

‘It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. You just go into overdrive and think about what it means,” Claire, 41, told MailOnline.

They were then blue-lit to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, in 2017, where he underwent a successful operation and the family would move to North Carolina in January that year.

After learning to walk again, Arthur had a scan in December and the family were told the tumor had returned to the size of a ping-pong ball.

Ex-lawyer Claire said this was ‘quite unusual’ for a low-grade tumor as it was quite ‘aggressive’. Arthur then underwent another operation to remove this tumor as they crossed the pond.

The parents were then told that despite two operations to remove the tumor, it continued to grow back and that the next step was to try chemotherapy.

But after five months it stopped working.

Claire and Henry, who work in finance, then found a clinical trial in America and managed to get Arthur enrolled in it.

“We put him on medication that is actually like a targeted therapy because his tumor cells have a certain genetic mutation and we were fortunate that they were testing different genetic mutations,” the stay-at-home mom said. .

‘Luckily he has one of the genetic mutations that one of the drugs targets, so we confronted him about that in America.’

Arthur remained in the trial for two years and within the first few months the size of the tumor had reduced by 80 percent.

Over the next few years on this drug, Arthur was completely stable.

But after the trial was completed, he had to stop taking the medication and the tumor started growing again.

Claire said the family were able to access this drug after a difficult time when they returned to Britain in early 2022.

“He continues to take that and it’s kept everything stable for five years now and he takes it every day,” Claire said.

“He goes to school and his immune system isn’t compromised or anything. We are fortunate that we are currently in a stable situation.

‘Now that we’ve learned more about it, we feel like we’re one of the lucky ones to have been diagnosed with low grade.

‘Even though it was very large when they found it and it had long-term health consequences for him, we’re lucky it’s low quality.’

‘His journey to the brain tumor has been very difficult and it is still a bit ongoing. I don’t think we have any illusions that we are one of the lucky ones.’

Now Arthur is raising money for The Brain Tumor Charity by climbing Mount Everest – a whopping 8,849 metres.

Although he has a weakness on the side of his body, it hasn’t stopped him from achieving his goal of raising awareness about brain tumors.

‘[I’m] honestly so proud. He had been talking about doing this for a while and we were worried that he wouldn’t be able to do it physically as it is still a challenge.

‘But we were talking about New Year’s resolutions with the family and he said, ‘I’m going to climb the mountain to raise money.’

‘It’s great as a mother to see how proud and how successful he is in what he does. He struggles academically at school and with sports.

“He’s not going to be team captain, but this is his thing and he’s very proud of himself.

‘He’s finding it difficult because we’re climbing in some pretty challenging weather conditions at the moment, but he’s determined and won’t give up.’

Arthur has spent his spare time climbing several mountains including Whernside, Buckden Pike and Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales and Thorpe Cloud in the Peak District.

Claire said her son also went outside and climbed when Storm Isha hit Britain.

‘I think that was quite a challenge for him and he was talking about the wind and the rain at the top.

‘I think he found it quite frightening. But when he reached the bottom he was very proud of himself for doing it and now he is proud to tell everyone that he climbed that. [during] Storm Isha.’

He has currently reached 2,500 million with around 6,349 million to go and has raised almost £6,000 for charity so far.

Claire says he likes to update his regularly Instagram page on his progress.

Arthur usually walks up mountains with members of his family, but since then he has had peers from his school willing to join him on his journey.

His school also held a fundraising day where students and teachers wore hats and donated to his cause.

Claire and Henry are going on a climb in April with some of Arthur’s teachers and friends.

To donate to Arthur’s page, click here.