University Hospitals Birmingham Charity

Alf's JNA Journey

Andy Pigg

Andy Pigg

My Story

At the end of June 2025, Alfie, our 17 year old fit and healthy son was given an appointment at Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham regarding his blocked, snotty nose and horrendous nose bleeds he had been having on and off since last April - That was when he had his first boxing fight at Brightstar home show. 

We thought the appointment was going to be the start of the process for the deviated septum surgery, we were then told Alfie has JNA.

JNA is Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma is a very rare, benign but locally aggressive vascular tumour that occurs almost exclusively in adolescent males. It can grow extensively, invading nearby structures such as the nose, sinuses, orbits, and even the brain in advanced cases.

Alfie was also asked if his journey could be filmed for Channel 5s ‘surgeons - matter of life or death’. It was his decision, and he agreed as he wants to raise awareness of a rare condition. (Show airs in January 2026)

Boxing & life was put on hold immediately.

3 weeks laer, Alfie had his surgery dates through.

Friday 18th July was round 1- Embolisation was needed so that the blood supply to the tumour could be cut off to help ready for removal the following day. When the anaesthetist spoke with him Alf was more concerned over a catheter than anything else!  He went down at 10.30am, being very brave about what lay ahead, and we started our clock watching. We went up to his ward around 2.30pm as they had said it would be about 3 hours, no sign, we then got a phone call to say he was on his way to recovery and then needed a pre op CT scan so we decided to go and check in the student digs we have booked for the week.  Got there (literally 5 minutes away) and got another call from recovery saying Alfie wants one of us with him so we raced back up to the QE.  I went in but was told that he had a laryngospasm (basically his throat seals shut) so there were lots of wires, oxygen masks on full etc. A chest X ray to see what damage had been done, a couple more hours in recovery and we were on the ward about 7pm, requesting McDonald’s. 

Round 2 on Saturday, started pre 6am, waiting for the TV crew to come and see him, they arrived at about 7am.

We then had lots of visits from anaesthetists talking to him about what happened yesterday reassuring him that it was rare and may/may not happen again. Mr Ahmed came down too, Alf had lots of questions again, what he doesn’t know about this hospital or the jobs people do or this operation will not be worth knowing. 

9.30am and he was taken down, he was the only surgery for today so massive dedicated team just for him. I can’t tell you how it feels to wait for our boy,

We went to the surgery doors with him and the team then over his care.  We walked out of the hospital not knowing exactly how long he surgery would take, but it would be at least 6 hrs.  we tried to occupy ourselves and took a walk down to the flat, then to Aldi then walked up to the retail park, just to kill time, then randomly walking round the Sainsbury’s sale rail and we got a call he was out. When we got to him, he was in recovery and he was talking to the surgery team, we could hear him breathing through his nose, he’s still asking questions in his sedated state wanting to know what blood group he was (o positive) thankfully didn’t have the throat issue this time. 

He needed to be sent for a CT scan, which was 2 floors up from recovery it took a lot of time and people to get him there and back to recovery.

Birmingham hospital is raising money for a mobile CT scanner which would have made Alf’s recovery a little bit more comfortable and easier for the staff.  Following the scan he was back to recovery and then moved to ICU.

I am running the marathon to help raise funds for a mobile CT scanner – that the hospital wants to purchase – this bit of kit is very expensive as you can imagine.  It will help patients as it can be taken to the areas of the hospital its needed in, and saves the staff a lot of work to transfer the patients to the fixed scanner and back again. 

All of the staff that we dealt with at Queen Elizabeth hospital were fantastic, especially his 2 surgery teams, without them operating on Alf quickly, there was the potential that he could of died from his JNA – raising some money is the least that we can do to say thank you to all the staff, for the great care they showed Alf and all the others that we spoke to, and have spoken to since his surgery.

University Hospitals Birmingham Charity

Raising for:

University Hospitals Birmingham Charity
112%

Funded

  • Target
    £5,000
  • Raised so far
    £5,610
  • Number of donors
    146

My Story

At the end of June 2025, Alfie, our 17 year old fit and healthy son was given an appointment at Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham regarding his blocked, snotty nose and horrendous nose bleeds he had been having on and off since last April - That was when he had his first boxing fight at Brightstar home show. 

We thought the appointment was going to be the start of the process for the deviated septum surgery, we were then told Alfie has JNA.

JNA is Juvenile Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma is a very rare, benign but locally aggressive vascular tumour that occurs almost exclusively in adolescent males. It can grow extensively, invading nearby structures such as the nose, sinuses, orbits, and even the brain in advanced cases.

Alfie was also asked if his journey could be filmed for Channel 5s ‘surgeons - matter of life or death’. It was his decision, and he agreed as he wants to raise awareness of a rare condition. (Show airs in January 2026)

Boxing & life was put on hold immediately.

3 weeks laer, Alfie had his surgery dates through.

Friday 18th July was round 1- Embolisation was needed so that the blood supply to the tumour could be cut off to help ready for removal the following day. When the anaesthetist spoke with him Alf was more concerned over a catheter than anything else!  He went down at 10.30am, being very brave about what lay ahead, and we started our clock watching. We went up to his ward around 2.30pm as they had said it would be about 3 hours, no sign, we then got a phone call to say he was on his way to recovery and then needed a pre op CT scan so we decided to go and check in the student digs we have booked for the week.  Got there (literally 5 minutes away) and got another call from recovery saying Alfie wants one of us with him so we raced back up to the QE.  I went in but was told that he had a laryngospasm (basically his throat seals shut) so there were lots of wires, oxygen masks on full etc. A chest X ray to see what damage had been done, a couple more hours in recovery and we were on the ward about 7pm, requesting McDonald’s. 

Round 2 on Saturday, started pre 6am, waiting for the TV crew to come and see him, they arrived at about 7am.

We then had lots of visits from anaesthetists talking to him about what happened yesterday reassuring him that it was rare and may/may not happen again. Mr Ahmed came down too, Alf had lots of questions again, what he doesn’t know about this hospital or the jobs people do or this operation will not be worth knowing. 

9.30am and he was taken down, he was the only surgery for today so massive dedicated team just for him. I can’t tell you how it feels to wait for our boy,

We went to the surgery doors with him and the team then over his care.  We walked out of the hospital not knowing exactly how long he surgery would take, but it would be at least 6 hrs.  we tried to occupy ourselves and took a walk down to the flat, then to Aldi then walked up to the retail park, just to kill time, then randomly walking round the Sainsbury’s sale rail and we got a call he was out. When we got to him, he was in recovery and he was talking to the surgery team, we could hear him breathing through his nose, he’s still asking questions in his sedated state wanting to know what blood group he was (o positive) thankfully didn’t have the throat issue this time. 

He needed to be sent for a CT scan, which was 2 floors up from recovery it took a lot of time and people to get him there and back to recovery.

Birmingham hospital is raising money for a mobile CT scanner which would have made Alf’s recovery a little bit more comfortable and easier for the staff.  Following the scan he was back to recovery and then moved to ICU.

I am running the marathon to help raise funds for a mobile CT scanner – that the hospital wants to purchase – this bit of kit is very expensive as you can imagine.  It will help patients as it can be taken to the areas of the hospital its needed in, and saves the staff a lot of work to transfer the patients to the fixed scanner and back again. 

All of the staff that we dealt with at Queen Elizabeth hospital were fantastic, especially his 2 surgery teams, without them operating on Alf quickly, there was the potential that he could of died from his JNA – raising some money is the least that we can do to say thank you to all the staff, for the great care they showed Alf and all the others that we spoke to, and have spoken to since his surgery.