The chef reveals he had to break the bad news to his two other sons after youngest boy Valentino was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma
JEAN-Christophe Novelli has opened up his baby son's heartbreaking cancer battle and revealed he was forced to explain the devastating situation to his two other boys.
The celebrity chef made an appearance on This Morning today to talk to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield about the devastating health crisis facing his little boy Valentino.
He appeared on the show via a live link from his home in Hertfordshire and told his heartbreaking story to Holly and Phil.
Jean-Christophe revealed he and his fiancee Michelle were completely blind-sided by the diagnosis as there are no other instances of cancer on either side of the family.
He also explained that it took weeks for them to receive the bad news that Valentino was suffering from stage four neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system that affects infants.
However, he admitted the most difficult moment came when he had to explain the situation to his two other sons.
He had to tell Jean, eight, and Jacques, four, about their baby brother's illness and explain the difficult subject of cancer to them.
Jean-Christophe said: ""One day I was driving into school and my eldest said, 'I don't understand what is going on dad, everyone is mentioning Valentino at school.' And then I realised that I've got to tell them the truth. I've got to tell them exactly what is going on. What cancer is. What chemo is."
He said of the initial health scare: "One evening we were [up] very late - we were cuddling the baby. For for some reason we saw a little spot, a little lump on his neck.
"You don't believe it. You think it is part of his growth. I could see it was something unusually hard.
"We knew something was not right...
"He was a very healthy baby... The thing is, the situation with cancer is that you always believe it's going to be someone else...
"You don't want to put it on someone else, but you think everything will be alright.
"On both sides of the family there is no cancer."
Jean-Christophe revealed he struggled to deal with the wait as doctors raced to find out what was wrong with the youngster.
He said: ";It [the lump] was an anomaly - we never got a straight answer. It took a bit of time to get the results...
"The scan experience was not going well because Valentino had difficulty to breathe. I was doing the school run and Michelle was saying that he was having like a heart attack and then when they got the scan ready, we discover this lump.
"We never got a straight answer and it took time to get the results and when the word tumour or cancer came up, it took about a week to find out that.
"And then we found out it was cancer, the next problem was what stage the cancer was at."
However, he insists Valentino is "doing well" at home as doctors are starting him on a course of chemotherapy.
He added: "He's got no immune system... To have him back at home looked after Michele entirely - just having my voice around him...
"You can see he is doing very well..."
The couple found a lump on Valentino’s neck on October 23 and within just a few days it had doubled in size.
An MRI scan soon revealed the lump was cancerous and the child was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma cancer – a very rare cancer of nervous system.
Valentino went into surgery immediately but the couple were left devastated when they were told by surgeons that they would be unable to remove the tumour completely because it was so close to Valentino’s windpipe and vital nerves.
Last week they received a glimmer of hope from the doctors at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge who have said they believe they can treat him successfully with chemotherapy.
