A year on from her young son Obi\u2019s brain tumour diagnosis, Erin McNaught has given a happy update on his health.<\/p>\n
\u201cObi is absolutely thriving. He\u2019s hitting all his milestones,\u201d the model told Stellar in a new interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis chat is hilarious, he can say heaps of words, but for the most part, it\u2019s total gibberish, then he\u2019ll go, \u2018I want to sit now\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always nerve-racking in the lead up to his next MRI, which is coming up [this week]. But there\u2019s nothing we can do about it. If the tumour has come back, it has come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June last year, the 44-year-old revealed that Obi, who she shares with fianc\u00e9 Stasi Kotaras (a music producer also known as Stace Cadet), had been diagnosed with atypical Choroid Plexus Papilloma, a very rare type of brain tumour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really been able to look back through my photos of around [that] time last year because I couldn\u2019t bear to see pictures of him before we had taken him to the hospital,\u201d McNaught reflected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel so, so guilty that he was in so much pain, and we didn\u2019t know. But the other day I got the guts to look [back on that time] and he was still giggling and smiling and pretty happy, and then within a week he was really uncomfortable,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had started tilting his head to the side. He\u2019d completely gone off food, he\u2019d stopped rolling over, and had stopped basically trying to do anything. At first we put it down to, \u2018Oh, maybe he\u2019s about to learn a new skill\u2019 \u2013 sometimes they forget one skill while they\u2019re learning another.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it became quite apparent that this wasn\u2019t just a normal regression, that this is something more serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNaught also paid tribute to the nurse who she believes helped save the then seven-month-old\u2019s life after Obi was scheduled to have brain surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had this incredible nurse called Claire, who advocated for us,\u201d she revealed. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe said \u2018No, he needs to have an EVD put in\u2019 \u2013 an external ventricular drain because he had hydrocephalus, which is swelling of the brain as a result of the cerebrospinal fluid not being able to drain since the tumour had started blocking that passage.<\/p>\n
\u201cObi had an emergency EVD put in that evening, and it was immediate \u2013 the relief and the improvement. I genuinely believe if it hadn\u2019t been for Claire, he wouldn\u2019t have made it to the surgery on Saturday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n