A 12-year-old boy who feared he might not wake up while battling a rare blood disorder in hospital has been given hope thanks to an overseas donor.

Louie Wilders, from Gravesend, fell ill while holidaying with his family last year and was later diagnosed with very severe aplastic anaemia – a rare condition where the bone marrow stops producing enough red blood cells.

Over the last six months, Louie, who lives in Stanley Crescent and attends Northfleet Technology College, has undergone 30 blood transfusions.

He has also been isolated from his friends and family amid fears his body is unable to fight off infection.

Louie’s family nightmare first started after returning from a summer holiday to Montenegro in August.

Mum Vicky, 35, told KentOnline: “His skin started to look very yellow and the whites of his eyes looked yellow.

“He went to school but that afternoon we took him to the doctors. He was rushed to Darent Valley Hospital where they did lots of tests.

“They said his enzyme levels were through the roof and he was kept in for five days in which his liver function started to settle down.”

Louie was eventually released and told to come back every other day for blood tests, but doctors couldn’t tell the youngster’s worried family what exactly was wrong.

The next red flag came a few weeks later when Louie started noticing bruising on his shoulder and the back of his leg.

The family headed back to the hospital in Dartford, where a blood test revealed something was very wrong.

Vicky, who gave up her new job as Louie’s condition worsened, said: “The level of platelets in your body should be a minimum of 150,000 but Louis’s were only 3,000, which had caused the odd bruising. As well as having no white blood cells and very low red cells.”

Doctors told them the family had sent tests off to the Royal Marsden Hospital in London to which Vicky’s immediate fear was “that’s a cancer hospital”.

I remember lying there thinking ‘What if I don’t wake up?

Eventually she was told her son did not have cancer but still medics remain perplexed by Louie’s condition.

Vicky’s son wa transferred to the Evelina Children’s Hosptial in London for a bone marrow biopsy and tests.

By this stage Louie was too ill to talk and lay motionless in his ward bed.

“No one knew what was wrong with me,” he said. “I remember lying there thinking ‘What if I don’t wake up?’. It was so scary.”

Mum Vicky said: “I sobbed when Louie first told me that. I can’t imagine facing my own morality at just 12-years-old.”

On November 4, he was finally diagnosed with very severe aplastic anaemia and told he needed an urgent bone marrow transplant.

Doctors began trawling the international donor register for a match.

Meanwhile, Louie spent the next few months in and out of hospital with several complications from his blood failing to clot and lost 30 per cent of his bodyweight.

Louie said: “I was like a timebomb. The longer we were having to wait the more dangerous it was.”

As Louie had no cells to fight infection he was forced to live a lockdown-style existence whenever he returned home from hospital with his mum decontaminating the shopping and keeping the house spotlessly clean.

Despite these measures the schoolboy still fell ill.

Vicky said: “I had a suitcase packed in the car and as soon as Louie spiked a temperature we were off.

“He was so ill he couldn’t even walk to the car.”

For four months Louie’s stepdad, Fabio, 35, and his two sisters, Jessica, five, and Rosanna, one, were shipped off to live with their grandma down the road to avoid any infections coming into the house.

Louie’s mum said it was really tough as she missed her daughters and key development milestones for the one-year-old.

“Luckily she saved her first steps for when I swapped care of Louie with his dad Darren,” Vicky said.

On Christmas Day Louie and his mum were forced to watch the rest of the family behind the glass of the conservatory while they were kept separate.

Louie said: “We had family around but I could not even hug them. I couldn’t even hug my mum. I was too nervous to do anything.”

After an agonising wait a donor match was eventually found in Germany and Louie underwent the life-saving process.

“The actual transplant itself was so easy,” his mum said. “Just 20 minutes of what looks like a blood transfusion and it could hopefully save his life.”

However before the transplant Louie had to undergo chemotherapy to rid his body of old blood cells and start a “clean slate”.

His hair started to fall out on his pillow so he had it shaved off.

But that wasn’t the end of the ordeal.

Vicky said: “We had 12 good days after the transplant. He was feeling better and doing some exercises to build up his strength.”

Vicky said: “We had 12 good days after the transplant. He was feeling better and doing some exercises to build up his strength.”

But shortly after he developed a condition called Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) as his body and the new cells fought each other.

Louie added: “I was in cripping pain in my tummy for two weeks and it was so painful when I went to the toilet. I was so sick all through the night and day.”

His bone marrow is now steadily getting healthier but his mum still keeps a suitcase in the car in case he needs to be whizzed off to hospital at any moment.

Vicky said: “We’re on day 61 and he’s feeling so much better. If things are still heading in the right directon at day 100 we can relax slightly.”

Louie has missed going out on his bike and seeing his friends.

He has been keeping in touch via his X-box games console and his classmates have raised money through regular running events.

In aid of his cause his uncle Steven Caulfield and his work colleagues at the Metropolitan police will be doing the Three Peaks Challenge. To donate to the aplastic anaemia charity click the link here, or to register as a bone marrow donor click this link.

Louie, who dreams of one day being a marine biologist, is hoping to be able to return to school in September.