A YOUNGSTER'S potentially life-saving operation had to be halted at the last minute when doctors hit an unexpected snag.

Schoolboy David Astbury, nine, who suffered a massive brain haemorrhage last December, was due to have surgery at Hope Hospital, Manchester, yesterday's

But the surgeons had to call a sudden halt when they came across unexpected problems after starting the delicate operation.

David is now back at his home in Pickup Street, Clayton-le-Moors, with his mum Amanda and his six-year-old sister Emma.

He will now have to wait another agonising two weeks before returning to hospital for a second operation.

Worried Amanda said: "David had gone under and the doctors had started operating when they came across a problem.

"They came to me in the hospital and said that the haemorrhage was bigger than they first thought and that they would have to call off the operation."

Amanda, 27, added: "David is very seriously ill and he knows how bad it is, but he is a bit happier now he is back at home.

"When we first told him what had happened he locked himself in a toilet and it took two of us to talk him out.

"David doesn't like hospitals and he doesn't like all the needles. At the moment he is just happy to be home again playing with his computer.

"He is a bit sore where they had to cut his head but apart from that he is fairy happy."

Doctors first realised there was a serious problem when David was rushed into hospital after collapsing at Mount Pleasant primary school.

It was initially thought he had meningitis but a brain scan revealed he had suffered a massive haemorrhage and he was kept in intensive care for three weeks.

His mum said: "The waiting is just awful. That is the worst part of the whole thing. The doctors can't say how the operation will go.

"We will just have to take everything as it comes."

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