A brave tot who spent weeks in an induced coma after having a kidney removed because of a tumour is a “little fighter”, says his mum.

Amy Bedwell, 28, said that her smiley little boy Brodie had suffered from colic as a baby but had otherwise seem content, so she and her husband James, 31, had no way of knowing a massive tumour was growing inside of him.

Mum-of-two Amy, who lives in Shrubcote, Tenterden, said: “Brodie was always a bit lazy with his crawling but we didn’t know that was because he had a tumour in the way.

"He loves his food and has always been a little bit on the chubby side, so nothing was obvious.”

But it was during a family barbecue one Sunday last September that the Bedwells became concerned for their son, who one minute was contentedly gurgling and smiling and the next minute was in discomfort.

The couple saw that his tummy had gone hard on one side and contacted the out-of-hours doctor. They had to travel to Folkestone hospital for an appointment before being told to go to the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

Amy said: “Doctors told us there was a mass over Brodie’s kidney and spleen and we quickly learnt that the word ‘mass’ meant tumour.”

Brodie was just 13 months old when diagnosed with Wilms’ tumour, which is a type of kidney cancer that affects only around 70 children in the UK each year and Amy wants to tell her son’s story to raise awareness about the condition.

His tumour was to undergo a big growth spurt, pressing on his lungs and affecting his breathing and by November doctors at St George’s Hospital in Tooting were forced to operate to remove it. The tumour weighed a 1.2 kilograms.

They also took out Brodie’s left kidney and the tot had to be put in an induced coma for six-and-a-half weeks.

Amy said: “We were in complete shock and couldn’t believe what was happening. Brodie was the happiest baby ever but he became ill so quickly.”

During his treatment, Brodie has endured 18 rounds of chemotherapy, which has been administered at the William Harvey and the Royal Marsden Hospital, resulting in him losing all his hair.

The gruelling courses of chemo have also damaged the little boy’s liver for which he has been put on a specialist course of medicine that cost around £20,000.

There were times when the Bedwells were told to prepare for the worse as doctors thought they might lose Brodie, but Amy said: “Brodie is a very determined and strong-willed child and it has brought him through some very sticky situations. He’s a real little fighter.”

Brodie has a five-year-old brother called Sonny and Amy said that the family are staying strong. She said: “We are all there for each other and we remember that there is always someone worse off than us. We’re probably in survival mode and what has happened has not really hit us yet.”

The mum says that the time she’s spent at the Royal Marsden means that she has encountered so many other families who have children with cancer and she wants to raise money for the work of the cancer doctors who are saving children’s lives daily.

Together with family and friends she will be doing the South Downs 26- mile Trekathon on May 21 for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

For more details, or to make a donation visit the family's Just Giving page.