Telethon: Build Now Foundation providing happy place for Reid Reynolds with swimming pool in backyard

“It was like a movie, everything slowed down,” Jade Reynolds recalls of being told her six-month-old baby had a grade-four brain tumour.

Reid was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a highly aggressive, treatment-resistant form of brain cancer. Survival rates are low, and relapse is almost guaranteed.

“It was a bit of a blur, to be honest,” Jade, who was a 21-year-old first-time mum at the time, says of that day.

“I remember just being in complete shock and thinking, how on earth am I going to tell my mum and dad?”

From there, things moved at warp speed. Doctors feared Reid had only a few months left to live.

“They never thought his prognosis would be very good,” Jade says.

Surgery was planned for a week after Reid’s diagnosis. But that timeline was accelerated when he had two heart attacks, three days before his surgery date. The pressure of the tumour on his brain was too much.

“His little body just couldn’t cope any longer,” Jade says. “He ended up in emergency brain surgery that morning for about eight hours.”

Surgeons removed about 50 per cent of Reid’s tumour, but after 10 days in intensive care, he wasn’t waking up. He kept having seizures. There was still too much pressure on his brain.

A second surgery removed 99 per cent of the tumour but the fight for his life was just beginning.

“He ended up having two strokes in that surgery, because the midline of his brain shifted so quickly when they removed the tumour,” Jade says.

“The boy that went in on the Saturday was very different to the one that woke up 12 days later.”

It would be two years before Jade would see her little boy smile or laugh again.

Over the next seven months, Reid endured seven rounds of chemotherapy and spent his first birthday in Perth Children’s Hospital.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to strike the right balance between managing his worsening epilepsy and the arduous cancer treatment.

“I looked at him one day, and I remember thinking, if they give him any more chemo, it will kill him,” Jade says. “He was so unwell. So I said, let’s stop, let’s let nature take its course, and we’ll just see.”

Steeling herself for the worst, she watched in amazement as Reid got better.

Now five, Reid has seen over twice as many specialties at PCH as he’s had years of life. He has several appointments every week at the hospital or for outpatient therapies like physio and occupational therapy to help manage daily seizures, level-five spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, partial blindness and other secondary conditions.

Jade says he’s the resident medical mystery at PCH, as he continues to astonish doctors and nurses with every milestone reached. The five-year survival rate for glioblastoma is below 10 per cent.

To assist with Reid’s therapy, new Telethon beneficiary Build Now Foundation is working its magic in the backyard of his and Jade’s new home.

The foundation creates accessible spaces for children like Reid, with each project tailored to the child’s needs and the activities that bring them joy.

For Reid, happiness is when he’s in the water. “He really thrives outside, he loves being in the water,” Jade says.

Feeling weightless provides much-needed relief on his strained muscles and joints.

But the benefits of hydrotherapy are hindered by the logistics of getting to and from the pool.

With that in mind, Build Now is installing a hydrotherapy pool at home to give Reid ready access to the water.

Build Now founder Stephen Mansfield says Reid’s backyard is a “super special” project for the team.

“This one is probably top of the list,” he says.

“There’s very limited chances of him ever gaining strength, unless he does hydrotherapy treatment.”

Mr Mansfield says being a new Telethon beneficiary enables Build Now to “help more and more kids” like Reid.