SCHOOL friends of six-year-old Shottermill Infant School pupil Dominic Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2013, have helped raise more than £1,500 for The Royal Marsden Hospital, which gave him life-saving “exceptional care”.

Thanks to Dominic’s many supporters, his adoptive mother Theresa and her daughter Emily have succeeded in raising raise more than their target figure before they even set out this Saturday on the Big C Challenge, when they cycle from London to Paris in aid of the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

Their “Do it for Dominic” fundraiser has also been boosted by a generous outpouring of support for Mrs Kennedy, who is well known locally both as a former community midwife in Haslemere and a dinner lady at the Shottermill Infant School.

Dominic had a shaky start in life as his birth mother could not care for him, but he was fortunate to be placed at the tender age of 22 months in foster care at the Shottermill home of Mrs Kennedy.

His baby brother was also fostered by Mrs Kennedy but they were separated in October 2013, two months before Dominic, who had remained in Shottermill, was diagnosed with embryonic stage 4 rhabdomyosarcoma that had spread to his lungs.

Mrs Kennedy remained by his side at the Royal Marsden Hospital for more than five months, where he received life-saving medical treatment that shrunk his five-inch tumour to a fifth of its size and he is now in remission.

She went on to adopt him, because the family couldn’t bear to part with him.

“I am doing the London to Paris bike ride for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity because Dominic has surpassed expectations due to medical care,” she said. “My daughter and I are cycling to say a huge thank you to the Royal Marsden for their exceptional care for Dominic.

“We have been through a rather arduous journey together. He was four-and-a-half when he was diagnosed in December 2013 and his younger brother was taken from us in October. I had to make several trips to our GP because he wouldn’t listen to my concerns about Dominic.

“Dominic calls his tumour the ’nasty lump’. It was 12-and-a-half centimetres in size, which was pretty massive in his small body. It shrunk to two centimetres after chemotherapy and is just sitting there, because it is too dangerous to operate and the surgeons won’t risk it.

“If you saw Dominic now, apart from his big scar from the tracheotomy, you wouldn’t be able to tell he had been so ill. His hair has grown back and he no longer has gastric tube.”

To support Do it for Dominic, visit justgiving.com/Theresa-Kennedy5 or

justgiving.com/Emily-Kennedy5.