Edinburgh boy Rudi Abbot's brain tumour treatment fundraiser sees police team launch press up challenge

A team of Edinburgh police officers will drop and do 100 press ups everyday this month to raise money for a young Hearts fan who urgently needs to go to America for a brain tumour treatment.

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Robbie West, who works in Police Scotland’s Domestic Abuse Investigation Unit, has teamed up with several other colleagues from the force to raise funds for eight-year-old Rudi Abbot, who was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive Grade 4 brain tumour, known as pineoblastoma, in August 2020.

Since then he has undergone gruelling treatment, including extensive and extremely complex brain surgeries, travelling to Germany for six weeks of proton therapy, followed by four months of extremely intensive chemotherapy at Edinburgh Sick Kids. His chemo finished in April 2021 and he has been gradually recovering from the horrendous side effects of the 10 months of treatment, which saw Rudi experience nausea, physical weakening and extreme exhaustion.

Family and friends of eight year old Rudi Abbot from Edinburgh have set up a GoFundMe page.

In February, Rudi and his family received the news that more tumours had appeared on his MRI scan. But this time the treatment available in the UK had reached its limit, with Rudi’s only option left having been to travel to the US for treatment through a trial phase.

Now, Rudi has successfully been accepted onto the phase one medical trial in Seattle but the family need around £250,000 to travel there. They are now urging anyone who can to pitch in and do other fundraising challenges to help them reach their goal.

Robbie, who worked with Rudi’s dad, Ben, for over a year, said he desperately wanted to do something to help the family and get Rudi a step closer on the road to recovery.

“I just look at Rudi and see how switched on and open he is,” he said. “He radiates so much strength, it is unbelievable. Especially after bumping into him and his dad a couple weeks ago, he just stays so positive and funny despite everything he is going through.”

Since starting the fundraising two weeks ago, Robbie’s team has already raised £1,400 on their GoFundMe page and are eager to keep going. “I would like to set the goal a lot higher to help fund Rudi’s treatment, but to also help take some pressure off Ben as he is doing a remarkable amount. As a parent myself, I can’t even begin to imagine what he is going through,” said Robbie.

Robbie wants to spread the word of the fundraiser on social media and has enlisted the help of a children’s rugby team who are set to join in the press up challenge this weekend.

"If I could give one message to Rudi and his family, it would be to stay strong and know that we are all routing for him,” he said.