Louis and the Giggle Doctors

In 2025, Louis’s awesome aunties Lucy and Debs walked part of the Camino de Santiago, raising over £3,300 to fund Giggle Doctor visits!

Here’s the inspirational story behind this amazing effort.

“It starts with Dr Snug in Lewisham A&E, talking about elephant snot.”

It’s telling that this is how Louis’s mum Cat chooses to begin the story of his cancer diagnosis and treatment. It’s a story laced with pain, challenge and grief too, but it’s the joy, the play and the living in the moment which comes through most strongly.

After being admitted to hospital, Louis was diagnosed with neuroblastoma – childhood cancer: “He was 3 and a half at this point. We were told from the outset that they throw everything and the kitchen sink at neuroblastoma and they keep nothing in reserve. That means that it is a really brutal first line of treatment: they do a cocktail of ten weeks of chemotherapy, they do radiotherapy, they do surgery, they do stem cell transplant followed by really brutal more chemotherapy, they do immunotherapy and it’s…it’s really brutal.”

Louis was so young he didn’t always want to take his treatment seriously, but ask anyone who met him how he felt about the Giggle Doctors, and they’ll tell you the same thing: “He took the Giggle Doctors very seriously.”

So seriously that he designed his own Giggle Doctor coat – sketching out designs just like grown up Giggle Doctors do. And he had his own Giggle Doctor name: Dr Star.

Over the course of Louis’s medical journey, the Giggle Doctors got to know his family well. From that first moment in A&E, to helping Louis with the words when he rang the bell to signal the end of his gruelling 16 months of treatment: “They were there every step of the way.”

You want every childhood cancer story to finish with ringing the end of treatment bell, but sadly that wasn’t the case for Louis.“This is the terrifying day we went in for a scan a year later to find out that he’d relapsed,” Cat says.

It’s the news no family ever wants to receive, but for Louis that day was also full of the excitement of seeing Dr Yoho and Dr Dotty again.

Medical teams throw everything they’ve got at neuroblastoma, as Cat described. Very sadly, this means when a child does relapse, there are few options left. She recalls the last time they saw the Giggle Doctors at The Royal Marsden: “We knew that Louis really wasn’t very well – it was two and a half months before he died.”

It was Dr Yoho and Dr Geehee that day. And it’s not an encounter Dr Geehee will forget any time soon:

“I remember seeing him when he was very, very poorly. I played his favourite song, Prince Charming: Don’t you ever stop being handsome, Showing us you’re dandy…

And he started moving his hands and his body as if he was going to be dancing to the song. He lifted himself up and started doing the actions to the song – it was very moving, it was fantastic – and that’s my lasting memory of him. Even in the last moment he was able to engage with us, it was with absolute joy and play.

I’ll never forget that actually – it drives me when I’m working to think no matter what, you could always give something to the interaction that you’re having with the child. And you can always get something back, even if it’s a raise of a hand or the raise of a finger.”

It’s so hard not to focus on wishing it was Louis, now a teenager, writing this article, but as his mum Cat so insightfully puts it: “There will always be some lives that are short and it’s really important having charities like Theodora that really focus on how to make those lives better.”

It’s clear to see how the ripple effects of Louis’s vibrant personality are still reverberating through the lives of those who knew him – and also through the lives of many of us who didn’t. The lasting legacy of Dr Star inspires us every day in our mission to improve the lives of children and young people in hospital.

There’s no one better to sum this up than Louis’s mum, Cat: “When children have those extended periods of hospital stays, they need to be in the moment and they need to – when they’re up to it – enjoy life, and the Giggle Doctors showed how important that was and how possible that was really, to make fun out of any small thing.”

One of the families who knew the wonderful ripple effects of Louis’s vibrant personality were Alex, Zuleika, Fritha and Bethany. From Christmas events filled with craft activities, to creating a brilliant pebble stall, they found creative ways to help Louis’s beloved Giggle Doctors.

Alex shared in our 2017 Impact Report, “When Louis was first being treated, my daughter was aware from Louis’ mum that the Giggle Doctors cheered him up enormously. Even when he was in A&E and the family didn’t know what was wrong, Louis had already had a visit from a Giggle Doctor at Lewisham Hospital!”

“My daughter wanted to do something to help Louis and other children like Louis, who end up in hospital lots of time in pain, having to have all sorts of treatments. Louis really inspired us: his experience was something positive out of all the negative.”

Zuleika shares, “Our daughters Fritha and Bethany were friends with Louis and his brother Jay, and they were a big part of all the fundraisers too, like creating and running the pebble stalls”, and as you can see below, some beautiful pebbles were created!

Zuleika and her family will forever remember Louis and what a magnificent little boy he was, full of kindness and fun.

We are so grateful for their many years of support, and the many Giggle Doctor visits they have made possible for hundreds of children in hospital in loving memory of Louis.