To see Oscar Sharland today, dance battling with his friends or running around with little brother Alfie, it’s hard to believe that, less than two years ago, he was fighting for his life.
Diagnosed with medulloblastoma just after his 5th birthday, he had a tumour the size of a computer mouse at the nape of his neck – and the cancer had spread to three sites in his spine.
“There’s no words to explain what goes through your mind; instantly you think the worst; you think you’ve lost your child, even though he’s still sitting there,” says dad Greg.
“Without this hospital’s support, their reaction, their experts, we wouldn’t be where we are today, simple as. Addenbrooke’s has proved it goes above and beyond. Running the Marathon for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) is my opportunity to give back.”
Greg, a Continuous Improvement Manager from Steeple Bumpstead, near Haverhill, is one of 18 runners in this year’s TCS London Marathon raising money for ACT and has already doubled his sponsorship target of £1,000.
Oscar started having occasional bouts of sickness in early 2023, with doctors putting them down either to a bug or abdominal migraine. But the frequency and intensity increased, culminating in him vomiting eight times in a single day. Mum Lucy took him to their local hospital; again, a bug or migraine was thought to be the cause. But that same night, Oscar was sick yet again – so Greg took him back.
An MRI two days later revealed the cancer; and within the hour, Oscar and his parents were in an ambulance to Addenbrooke’s.
Because of the fast-moving nature of the cancer, that same night, Greg and Lucy were told their little boy would need immediate brain surgery followed by both chemo and radiotherapy, “that he might not be able to speak, that he wouldn’t be able to have children – all this information was laid out – and that we needed to sign consent forms straight away”.
“The operation was a success: they got 95% of the tumour,” continues Greg. “But the left side of his body was affected, he had a tremor in his arm, lost the fine motor skills in his hand and he’s left-handed, he struggled to walk, and the sight in his left eye was pretty much gone. His arm and leg have recovered about 95%: he retaught himself to write again, in fact he can write with both hands now!”
A first round of chemotherapy followed. “We didn’t use the ‘cancer’ word until later; I drew him a picture and said ‘You’ve got this lump in your head that’s making you sick and we need to get rid of that to make you feel better. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but it’s going to make you better’,” says Greg. “Because he was so little, he took our lead. You know it’s a hard road he’s going on, but you’ve got to lead him along that road.”
Opting into a trial for medulloblastoma, the Sharlands were then referred to University College London Hospitals (UCLH) for intense proton-beam radiotherapy – twice daily for six weeks, which became seven because of a bout of pneumonia. Due to the precision required for the treatment, Oscar had to have a general anaesthetic for every single session; every single morning and every single afternoon, more than 100 anaesthetics in total.
Nil by mouth in between, he could only eat in the evening and was tube-fed overnight to help keep his weight stable. “I couldn’t believe how brave he was, from start to finish; he has never winged, not once,” says Greg.
“I can name probably five occasions on which he’s cried. He’s 7, turning 8 in June. He was a soldier through it all. I said to him: if I can make you laugh every day, then I’m doing my job.”
Back at Addenbrooke’s, chemotherapy was the final phase. A reaction to one of the drugs caused Oscar disabling side-effects – slackening his vocal cords so he couldn’t talk, weakening his legs so he couldn’t walk – so it had to be halted.
Along with the treatment and expertise provided by the medics, Greg says the hospital’s support staff, including cooks, teachers, play workers and laughter experts, “were incredible. It’s those things that make a real difference; breaking up the day and distracting from that constant beeping noise”.
He also pays tribute to the nursing teams: “Yes, they’re busy, but nothing was ever too much. Sometimes I’d nip to the toilet, come back and Oscar was missing – he’d gone to the nurses’ station for a hug.”
Finally, in the October of 2024, “they sat us down and said: ‘He is remission, there’s nothing there, he can ring the bell.’ So far – he’s got an MRI next in May – all has been good.”
Because chemo kills duplicating cells, Oscar’s blood count had to be constantly buoyed by transfusions, 37 in total. As a result, he was left with a sky-high iron count, managed by having half-pints withdrawn at intervals.
The treatment also stalled Oscar’s hormones and therefore his growth; since starting hormone treatment last September, he’s now grown 4cm.
The family experienced enormous loss during Oscar’s treatment: first Greg’s brother took his life, then his father died from a heart attack.
“It sounds cheesy, but you look at your children and think: if they can do it, I should be able to too,” Greg reflects. “You just keep going, focus on what you can change and, with the things you can’t, on what you can do to make them a little bit better.”
With brother Alfie, who was only 1 when Oscar was diagnosed, his constant playmate, Oscar is, says Greg “just a brilliant little boy”.
Getting a ballot place in the Marathon, running it has been a long-held ambition for Greg, who’s run halves but never the full 26.2 miles. Doing it for ACT is the ultimate motivation: “There are so many words I could say. . . Addenbrooke’s is one of the leading hospitals and the only way it’s going to stay a leading hospital is if we support it. They can save people’s lives, or make them bearable.
“Never in this world would I have expected this to happen to us – the truth is you never know when you might need Addenbrooke’s too.”
Support Greg at: Greg Sharland is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust
To read the stories for our fabulous runners, please see our London Marathon 2026 news release.
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