PHIL Bowles has held his son in his hands and felt the little boy's heart stop beating.

He has watched him suffer cardiac arrests, kidney failure and seizures so constant that hope of a life without them had never seemed a reality.

Until now.

In May, Phil and his wife, Sonya took their nine-year-old son, Angus, to the United States for what they hoped was life-changing surgery.

Angus suffers from Pallister-Hall Syndrome and has a large benign tumour on his brain, causing him to seize.

The Bowleses battled for about three years to get funding to be able to get their son the surgery he needed.

The results have exceeded anything they could have imagined.

"He is a different child - it's surreal, I just can't explain it," Phil said.

"We were hoping for a 50% reduction in seizures and it's probably been more like 90%."

Before his surgery, Angus was suffering from seizures on average every two minutes.

"He has gone from not talking, not walking and having a nasogastric feeding tube, to walking - running - and talking. He even rode a bike for the first time at school the other day," he said. "He walks down to feed the animals at home and tips buckets of feed out and gives the horses carrots - it's incredible.

"A few days after we got back from America his sister came running in and said 'Angus is eating his dinner on his own'. That just blew everyone away."

There is the possibility Angus will need another operation down the track, which could rid him of seizures entirely.

Angus' teachers have noticed a huge change in the newly-bubbly student, who now remembers and calls everyone by their names, not just his favourite teacher, Julie Small.

Principal Marina Clarke said she was thrilled to see the changes.

"I saw Angus one day and said 'hello' and he said 'hello' back and before then I didn't know he could talk," she said.

"But I do know he is a good dancer because I saw him on the dancefloor at the disco - he was there like every other student but would never have gone before."

Maryvale pub owner Denis Reynolds kicked off fundraising to help make surgery a reality for his little mate.

The two often hang out over a glass of lemonade, which was the first thing requested by Angus when he woke up from surgery.

The family would take Angus to have a drink with Denis when it was difficult to get him to take fluids.

But nothing compared to the drink they shared post-surgery.

"That first day he walked in to say g'day and sat up and talked and had a lemonade, that was really awesome," Denis said.

"He was running and smiling and giving hi-fives.

"It was really emotional, people had tears in their eyes."