SWNS
A schoolboy has had an operation on his skull every two months for eight years to cure a HEADACHE.
Brave Laughlan Dougall has had 40 operations since he was two years old when he was diagnosed with a frontal lobe arachnoid cyst - a growth that swells and causes pressure to build up in his skull.
Since then he has had to regularly go under the knife to drain fluid and even expand his skull.
Doctors at Glasgow's Yorkhill Royal Hospital for Sick Children have installed several shunts into his head which connect his brain to his stomach to allow the fluid in the cyst to drain away but the shunts continue to fail and need replacing regularly.
The Celtic fan still loves to play football with his mates, although he isn't well enough yet to join a team, and attends school three days a week.
Laughlan, of South Lanarkshire, said: "I have always had the headaches so I don't really notice them anymore. I have had a lot of operations but I don't mind them really. It is just something that happens."
Laughlan's mother Debbie, 36, first noticed something was wrong with his son when he continually fell over as a toddler.
She took him to hospital where doctors found he had a cyst in his brain. The cyst constantly fills with fluid causing pressure to build inside Laughlan's skull, and giving him a constant headache.
Proud Debbie has raised her son alone, along with his 17-year-old sister Amber, since his dad Barry died of skin cancer three years ago.
She said: "He has had 40 operations but each time I have to watch him be put to sleep is painful.
"At the end of the day he is my baby and always will be. We just take each day at a time and hope this shunt won't fail.
"I don't know how he lives with a constant headache. I couldn't do it. He is absolutely amazing and the bravest person I know."
Laughlan is now helping to promote a campaign for the Child Brain Injury Trust to raise money for children suffering from the same condition.