Father tells of his son's brain tumour battle as bank colleagues raise £1.95 million

 
18 months’ chemotherapy: Toby Ritchie in hospital in 2013

A Goldman Sachs banker today said he wished he could swap places with his seven-year-old son who has an inoperable brain tumour.

Rob Ritchie, 42, spoke as it emerged colleagues moved by his son Toby’s plight have raised $3 million (£1.95 million) — the largest single donation to childhood brain tumour research.

Further donations are expected when Mr Ritchie leads a team of 12 on an expedition to climb the height of Mount Everest later this month in the Alps.

Toby is recovering from 18 months of chemotherapy but is expected to require further treatment.

“There is no question you would do whatever you could for him,” Mr Ritchie told the Standard.

“I think any parent would say the same. I have had a terrific life. He hasn’t had a chance yet.”

Speaking at Goldman Sachs’ Fleet Street headquarters, Mr Ritchie, a managing director in investment banking, said Toby was diagnosed with a brain stem tumour at the age of five.

He had undergone months of tests and spent 75 nights in Southampton hospital as doctors sought to discover what was causing severe breathing problems. His lungs collapsed and he nearly died of pneumonia.

Toby, the youngest of Mr Ritchie’s three children, was given an MRI scan in March 2013. A “grade two” slow-growing tumour the “size of a golf ball” was spotted within minutes. It cannot be removed as this would risk damaging vital areas at the top of his spine.

Mr Ritchie said: “If he had been diagnosed as a younger child they could have found a pea inside of his head, not a golf ball.

“The outlook at that point was pretty bleak. Having learned a lot more about it, we were somewhat lucky. One of the doctors has told me he is the luckiest of the unlucky.”

Growing up, Toby would dribble and struggle to swallow — only later did Mr Ritchie and wife Tanya realise that could be a sign of a tumour.

Brain tumours kill more people under 40 than any other cancer but receive only one per cent of cancer research funding. The money raised from the Everest in the Alps trek will be donated to the Brain Tumour Charity, which will work with Cancer Research UK to establish pioneering research.

Starting on March 24, Mr Ritchie and colleagues will use skis to ascend 8,848m — the height of Everest — during four days in the Swiss Alps. Each team member will burn 10,000 calories a day — four times the average.

Mr Ritchie said: “I want to leave a legacy out of this whole terrible situation with Toby. He will almost certainly have to have treatment again, and probably more than once. Day to day now, he is going to school, which is brilliant. He wants to tear around with everybody but doesn’t have the co-ordination and balance.”

Sarah Lindsell, chief executive of the Brain Tumour Charity, said: “This is the largest single donation we have received for research into childhood brain tumours and it will have a profound impact on what we can achieve.

“We are immensely grateful to Rob Ritchie, who is so determined to build something positive out of Toby’s illness, and we will be supporting him and his team every step of the way.”

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