Figtree boy Ben Fleitmann was diagnosed with neuroblastoma when he was just two weeks old.
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Nine months on, his parents Kate and Walter are preparing to dress him in his superhero outfit for the Little Heroes Walk at next month's Run2Cure Neuroblastoma in Sydney's Domain.
The family has put a team together for the walk which raises funds for research into neuroblastoma - the leading cause of cancer deaths in children under five years.
It's thanks to that research that Ben has so far been able to avoid gruelling rounds of chemotherapy that would have taxed his little body, with surgeons able to take a 'watch and wait' approach.
"An ultrasound at two weeks revealed a mass in Ben's left adrenal gland and because scans showed it was growing rapidly, he had to undergo a laparotomy to remove the tumour at seven weeks old," Mrs Fleitmann said.
"The surgery went well, the tumour and the adrenal gland was removed and there was no remaining cancerous tissue.
"However surgeons did discover hepatic metastasis - which means tumours had developed throughout his liver. We were told that five years or so ago, that would have meant Ben would have had to undergo hard core chemotherapy.
"Thanks to research though, specialists are able to take a watch and wait approach as research has shown that these type of tumours often shrink on their own in children under 18 months."
And that's what has happened in Ben's case, with the two last scans revealing the tumours had reduced in size.
"It's still early days and Ben will have to be regularly monitored and may need chemo," Mrs Fleitmann said. "But that treatment has side effects so if we are able to avoid it, especially when he's so young, then that's what we'll do."
As a registered nurse who works at Wollongong Hospital, Mrs Fleitmann is no stranger to the hospital environment. However she's never been on the other side, and said it's opened her eyes.
"We had no warning - while I was pregnant I had a two vessel cord which isn't usually an issue, and that's why the scans were done to check Ben's kidneys, which were fine," she said.
"To be told he had a neuroblastoma, and to watch him go through all this, so tiny and helpless, was tough.
"But our family rallied around us, and the doctors at Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick are so incredibly smart and so wonderfully empathetic. Plus the charities provide a lot of support and information at a time when everything is so overwhelming."
Mrs Fleitmann encouraged other Illawarra residents to take part in the Run2Cure Neuroblastoma on June 2.
The event was started by Lucy Jones, president of Neuroblastoma Australia, after she lost her two year old daughter to the cancer in 2010.
Neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumour of childhood, commonly originating in the abdomen. The average age of diagnosis is two years and children with aggressive forms of the disease have only a 50 per cent chance of survival. The charity believes these statistics can be turned around with enough research.
Register, or donate to Benji's team, at www.run2cure.org.au for the fundraising event which includes the 1km Little Heroes walk, as well as 1km, 3km, 5km and 10km runs.