Rushed wedding gave brain tumour baby family name before he died
Mum, Kate Goodall, is raising money for Brain Tumour Research.
Last updated 6th Feb 2023
A Dumfriesshire couple rushed forward their wedding so their baby boy would have the family name before he died from a brain tumour.
Jacob Goodall died from an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumour (ATRT) when he was just four months old.
His parents, Kate, 44, and Andy, 44, brought their planned wedding forward with a special dispensation from the Registrar General to marry quickly.
Kate said: “This is something usually only reserved for serving military and terminally ill adults, but if we were going to lose Jacob, I didn’t want him to go with a different surname to mine. It meant so much to all of us to be able to do it.”
Kate is now working with the charity Brain Tumour Research and is doing the 10,000 Steps a Day in February challenge to raise money to help find a cure for the disease.
She has already raised more than £1,000, after initially aiming for £150.
'I knew we were going to lose him'
For the first few weeks of his life Jacob had problems with acid reflux, so Kate and Andy took him to Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, where they were living at the time.
A consultant noticed Jacob had slight facial paralysis because when he cried, one of his eyes didn’t fully close. He was also breathing noisily and had an obstructed airflow.
Kate, who works in publishing, said: “Jacob had an ultrasound scan, and we were told they had found a mass on his brain which they believed was a brain tumour.
“He was only four-and-a-half weeks old. Although hoping for the best, I think in my heart of hearts, I knew we were going to lose him.”
Jacob was taken to Southampton General Hospital where the extremely rare ATRT tumour was confirmed.
Kate added: “They said Jacob had a very slim chance of survival, but they wanted to operate on him. In early September, Jacob underwent his surgery.
They managed to remove 95% of the tumour, far more than they thought they could achieve, which gave us some hope.”
Wedding brought forward
Jacob had his surgery on 8 September 2016, and spent three weeks on ventilators in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Southampton General Hospital.
On 16 September 2016, Kate and Andy tied the knot at Portsmouth Registry Office, a far cry from the festival wedding they were in the early stages of planning for 2017. After exchanging vows, the newlyweds headed straight back to the hospital to be with Jacob.
In October, Kate and Andy managed to drive Jacob to Kate’s hometown, Dumfries, in Scotland to see her parents, grandpa and wider family and friends.
Kate said: “That was hugely important to me; we had a lot of laughs and fun, but it was also very emotional.
“At one point, my papa was cuddling Jacob and I noticed he had turned blue, there was clearly something not right and, goodness knows where it came from, but the training kicked in and we kept him going with CPR until the ambulance arrived.”
'Painful to talk about'
Jacob was taken to Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. He stayed there for two weeks because it emerged he had bronchiolitis.
In mid-November, Jacob was back at home when again he struggled to breathe. He needed to be resuscitated and another MRI scan followed.
Kate said: “The scan showed the tumour was back, and it was bigger than the initial tumour. They also found a tumour on his kidney. At that point, we knew it was over.”
On 24 November 2016, Jacob died peacefully in the arms of his loving parents.
Fundraising
Brain tumours kill more children than leukaemia and any other cancer, yet historically just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease.
Kate will soon to embark on the 10,000 Steps a Day in February challenge to raise vital funds for Brain Tumour Research.
She said: “I want to do this for Jacob, it’s so important to me. If just one penny I raise helps other families avoid the heartbreak we’ve been through, then it’s worth it.
"Hopefully, the wee guy will be with me every step of the way.”
To donate to Kate’s fundraising page, visit: justgiving.com/fundraising/foreverjacob