Brave Whangārei toddler to spend Christmas in hospital battling rare cancer

One-year-old Grayson Partridge still smiling the day after the bone marrow transplant. Photo/Supplied

Brave little Grayson Partridge will spend Christmas in hospital, but his mum says that's a small price to pay for the bigger picture.

The little superhero has been fighting anaplastic large cell lymphoma - a rare cancer of the immune system - since February.

This year has been a roller coaster ride for his parents Alex and Jody Partridge, from Whangārei.

Treatment plan A - six months of chemo - and plan B - a cancer therapy drug from the UK - had not worked.

On November 12 the family arrived in Auckland to begin plan C at Starship.

It started with chemotherapy, followed by radiation and then the bone marrow transplant — Jody was his donor.

They have been there permanently for the past five weeks and will spend Christmas and New Year there, too.

"He hasn't seen anything Christmassy unfortunately because he's been locked in the room the whole time.

"But at the same time it's kind of lucky he's so young because he doesn't know any different and he doesn't feel like he's missing out.

"At the end of the day it's a small cost for the bigger picture. He'll have lots more Christmases to make up for this one," she said.

Grayson Partridge has more than 800 courage beads - these are just some of them. Photo/Supplied

Jody and her mum, who left her job to support the family, have been at Starship the entire time.

Meanwhile, Alex has had a few commitments with police college training and recently received the "exciting news" he had been accepted.

Jody said during the latest treatment plan she had seen "every shade of Grayson".

"We've had days where he is running around in circles, just an absolute box of birds, like a normal toddler doing normal toddler things.

"To other days where he's completely catatonic and he is on an oxygen mask, he won't move, he won't wake up — really scary days to be honest."

Jody said the treatment was going to plan so far and recently Grayson had been allowed short breaks off the ward.

If she had a Christmas wish, it would be that the treatment continues to work.

"Sometimes you think if I had it any other way would I want anything different for him today? Everybody wants healthy kids and happy kids, and 99 per cent of the time at the moment he is happy, and apart from the healthy - we're working on it."

A Givealittle page has been set up to help the family, visit givealittle.co.nz/cause/graysons-transplant