A NEWPORT tot is facing a make-or-break operation which could prolong his life.

Four-year-old Leo Jones is battling for his life in end-stage kidney failure after a transplant with a kidney from his father Gareth Jones failed.

The Ringland youngster has been unable to have dialysis as his body has rejected the plastic tubes doctors have attempted to use to carry out the procedure, causing him serious illness including peritonitis, which left him fighting for his life.

Tomorrow Leo will go to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff to see if he is suitable for a procedure called a fistula.

This is an abnormal connection between an artery and a vein letting him have dialysis without the use of tubes.

If Leo can take the fistula he could be put onto dialysis for three hours a day, three times and week without the need for tubes, and he will have the operation at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Leo’s mum Katherine Whatley, 28, said: “Whatever the decision I am going to blame myself for something.

“If the dialysis doesn’t work it could shorten his life but if he doesn’t have the dialysis he will have a short life anyway. It’s very stressful.”

The youngster, who started at Alway Primary School last month, was given just a ten per cent chance of survival when he was born with a tumour on his spine in 2005.

He survived a cardiac arrest at just two-weeks old and undergoing a painstaking operation to remove the tumour, which left his kidneys permanently damaged.

The Howe Circle lad takes a cocktail of seven different drugs a day and two injections a week to control his condition.

His father Gareth Jones donated a kidney in May but a scan the day after the operation revealed blood was not flowing properly through the organ so doctors had to remove it before it began poisoning his body.

Leo will have to wait another three or four years before another transplant can be attempted to allow him to grow.