Helen's Fund

It is with very great sadness that I share this post by Megan Davies, Helen's daughter.

Sadly Helen lost her fight on Thursday, after an 8 year battle with cancer fought with great determination, dignity, compassion for others and humour. She has been the most incredible inspiration, and when fighting to access the drugs she needed she was always keen to stress that she was not just fighting for herself but for everyone in the same position.

As you will be aware, we have been fundraising for Helen's cancer treatment and have raised a fantastic £8,710.  Of this £7,500 has already been spent on treatment but we hope you do not mind if the remainder is used to pay towards the funeral expenses.  Sadly due to the years of ill-health suffered by both Helen and her husband Ian which meant that they have both been unable to work, plus all the expenses they have incurred in paying towards her treatment, they need help to pay for the funeral. 

Should anyone wish to consider donating towards this final tribute to this inspirational lady, your contribution would be greatly appreciated by her family & friends. 

RIP Helen, you will be greatly missed by all who loved you and knew you


Megan Davies: 

Thursday was the hardest day of my life we said goodbye to the strongest bravest lady I know my mum Helen. She fought right until the very end and was surrounded by all of her family. She battled cancer for 8 years and suffered so much but she did it all for us now she is at peace we will all miss her so much. We love you Mam xxxx





January 2019

We now have sufficient funding to pay for Helen's treatment and she has therefore asked me to advise you that she does not need any further donations at this time.  She has received 3 treatments and we are awaiting the results of her scan to determine what progress has been made.  Very many thanks for you continuing to support Helen with donations and Helen's Fund campaign by fundraising, liking and sharing our facebook posts and tweeting/retweeting.  Everything helps to maintain the campaign momentum, raise awareness, generate donations and perhaps even more importantly, keep Helen's spirits up.  She is so incredibly grateful and humbled by all the support she is receiving.  Thank you all very much.

November 2018

A member of Helen's family came forward to pay the £3,600 for the first treatment. We are so incredibly grateful to them as it has meant that Helen was able to start the treatment in November.  She had her second treatment before Christmas and will now have her 3rd treatment on January 4th. But the race is now on, as we need to raise £1,900 every three weeks to keep Helen on treatment. Our target has been increased to £9.300 to include this contribution of £3,600  plus the £5,700 needed to pay for treatments 2, 3 and 4.  Thank you so much for all your help. Please keep helping in whatever way you can, donate, fund raise and share/like our posts so we can raise more awareness of this campaign get lots more people helping Helen Thank you

Thanks to your support we have already raised £8,133 for Helen to access the breast cancer drug Pertuzamab.  Although Pertuzamab is funded by the NHS in Wales, it is only funded for people who have not had cancer treatment paid by the NHS before.  This is the second time we have run a fundraising campaign for Helen - see the remarkable story of her difficult journey below. 

Background - Helen's Fund Campaign 2015-2016:

In August of 2015 the Helen's Fund campaign was started to raise funds to pay for Helen's cancer treatment as she needed a drug not funded by the NHS in Wales.

By January of 2016 the situation became critical for Helen as she had exhausted all options available to her on the NHS and needed to start treatment with the revolutionary drug Kadcyla immediately. Fortunately at that time we had raised just under £25,000, sufficient to pay for 3 cancer treatments - each lasting just 3 weeks!

The treatment was started and as each month passed her oncologist documented the improvement in her condition and the reduction in her tumours. The race was now on, to continue to fundraise sufficient amounts of money to keep her on treatment.

Thankfully we were contacted by Kate Northcott Spall of the Pamela Northcott Foundation, who works tirelessly campaigning and writing appeals for NHS funding for cancer treatment.  She offered to assist us by working with Helen’s oncologist, legal and clinical advisors to submit a detailed appeal for Helen’s treatment. We were all absolutely delighted when her hard work resulted in a successful outcome and Helen was funded by the NHS to continue on Kadcyla for as long as it continued to work for her.

However since then Kadcyla has ceased to work and Helen's condition has deterioriated.  She now needs to start taking  Pertuzumab as soon as possible.  Although Pertuzumab  is available on the NHS in Wales,  it is only available as a ‘first line’ treatment.  This means NHS Wales will only fund this drug for patients who have not previously received any other cancer treatments. As Helen has  already had Herceptin and Kadcyla, she will not qualify, so will need to pay for it.

The cost of the first treatment is £3,600 and then 3 weeks later, and every subsequent 3 weeks, the cost will be £1,900.  We are advised that after a few treatments we should know whether this drug is effective or not.

We have therefore set our initial target as £9,300 to pay these initial four treatments.

We are delighted that Kate Northcott Spall has agreed to help Helen again to submit an appeal for her to receive this drug on the NHS.  If we raise sufficient funding to fund the treatment, then this will hopefully provide the evidence of efficacy required.  

We are incredibly grateful to Kate and everyone who helped promote Helen's campaign and fundraise for Helen's Fund last time, it was a fantastic achievement.  We are now asking for your help again!

Since 2016 so many positive things have happened for Helen, she has seen all three of her daughters grow into fine young women; her two youngest daughters progress to University; the birth of her first grandchild Freddie and the improvement in the health of her husband who unfortunately suffered a massive stroke in 2016.  Please help Helen to continue her fight.