Amy’s Fight

Dear Friends, Family, and Compassionate Strangers,

With heavy hearts and hopeful spirits, we are reaching out to share the story of Amy, a devoted single mother of two beautiful children and a cherished friend to many who is currently in the fight of her life.

Since 2021, Amy has been bravely battling cancer for the 3rd time and is currently undergoing her 38th round of chemotherapy. Sadly, she is now in a critical fight for her life. While I will share her full story below, we are asking for your support in raising funds to alleviate the financial burden on Amy and her children during this challenging time. Any donations will go towards her ongoing treatment, including therapies not covered by her hospital care, such as oxygen therapy and red light therapy, general bills and quality time with children.

We are committed to doing everything we can to help Amy fight this awful disease and provide her with the precious time she deserves with her children and hopefully take some stress away whilst she focuses on recovery.

We understand that times are tough for many, and if you're unable to donate, we would greatly appreciate it if you could share this fundraiser to help spread the word.

AMYS STORY

Amy was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in late April 2021.

It was discovered by accident when her doctor ordered blood tests and an ultrasound, suspecting pancreatitis. At the time, Amy’s blood results were normal, and she had no symptoms aside from feeling very tired, which she attributed to being a busy mum to kids at the time aged 4 and 6.

On the morning of her ultrasound (a week after the blood tests and doctor’s visit), Amy was feeling better and considered cancelling, thinking she was fine. But her husband convinced her to go ahead with the scan.

She went alone, expecting a routine procedure. During the ultrasound, they unexpectedly scanned her bowel and discovered an 8cm lump on the right side of her colon.

They reassured her that it might be nothing but asked her to return the next day for a CT scan with dye. That was the scan that completely changed her world and threw her life into a spin.

The results revealed a large tumour in her bowel and six additional tumours in her liver. Amy was sent to Dandenong hospital that night and underwent keyhole surgery two days later to remove the 8cm tumour, which was blocking her bowel and required immediate attention.

After surgery, Amy had a month of recovery before starting the FOLFOX chemotherapy regimen, which was planned for 12 rounds. However, after four rounds, the doctors needed to see more change to consider liver surgery, so they switched her treatment to FOLFURINOX. This new treatment was extremely harsh; she lost her hair immediately and experienced severe nausea and fatigue.

After completing 12 rounds of FOLFURINOX, there was major success: all the cancer spots on her liver had completely died, and the doctors declared her "no evidence of disease." However, to be fully cancer-free, surgery was the best option.

Unfortunately, when it came time for surgery, Amy's liver function wasn't sufficient for the operation. She needed 30% of her liver to be healthy, but she only had 28%. Despite this, she was selected for a trial at Monash Hospital, where she underwent a procedure to insert stents into her liver. These stents blocked off the damaged side and redirected blood flow to the healthy side, which led to a 15% increase in liver size in just two weeks. The doctors were amazed at the results.

This success enabled her to undergo major liver surgery, where 70% of her liver was removed. The surgery took place at Monash Clayton, and Amy was hospitalized for two weeks. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, she was unable to have any visitors, including her husband at the time, children and friends.

The surgery was incredibly difficult, with a large incision from her sternum to her belly button and around to her right hip.

After returning home to rest, just two weeks later, Amy’s marriage fell apart, and her husband left. She was left heartbroken, unwell, and facing the challenges of life as a single mum.

Amy finalised chemo and after recovering, from surgery Amy had regular check-ups and scans. For about eight months, she was cancer-free.

Amy then had to work through proceedings for her separation and spent the following months and out of lawyers offices and court but even with all of this stress things were getting finally getting better and Amy and her kids were starting to settle into their new normal.

Amy attended regular doctors check ups during this time when they started monitoring a lymph node that was fluctuating in size Eventually, it was confirmed that the cancer had returned. Amy immediately began chemotherapy again. During this period, she consulted with three different doctors about the possibility of surgery to remove the lymph node, but it was too close to a main artery for surgery to be an option as all 3 doctors advised.

At this point, Amy knew she had to advocate for her own care, which led her to switch hospitals. She was referred to the Olivia Newton-John Centre at the Austin Hospital and became one of the first patients in Australia to undergo "MRI radiation" targeting her abdominal lymph node with a new machine that allowed for precise radiation. After five rounds of this radiation treatment, Amy and her oncology team were celebrating success. They did it ! After being told a few times she had no option this was such a big win.

Amy settled back into life again .

Unfortunately, three months later, during a routine PET scan, it was confirmed that the cancer had again returned and with a vengeance. It had spread to her liver, lymph nodes in her stomach, and even her neck.

This time Amy and her medical team made the decision to move her chemo treatment to a local hospital to avoid hours of travel to and from treatment as she was often very unwell on the drive. Amy started chemotherapy again, returning to FOLFURI, the regimen she had been on before early in this journey. She lost her hair for the third time and endured extreme fatigue, nausea, and stomach pain. After five rounds, the side effects became unbearable, and a CT scan revealed even more distressing news: the cancer had spread even further, with more spots in her liver, lymph nodes pushing into her pancreas, and spots in her lungs.

Currently with little options for treatment, Amy is back on chemotherapy, restarting the FOLFOX regimen from 2021 in hopes of putting the cancer into remission again. She has just completed her 7th cycle of this chemotherapy. she is also on Oxaliplatin, which is nerve-damaging, and as a result she is losing feeling in her fingers, toes, tongue, and lips.

And this is where we stand whilst waiting for upcoming scans to see if this current treatment is working.

We have learnt on this journey that you need to advocate hard for yourself and always seek second , third even 4th opinions. What one doctor will say no to another has a game plan . Amy is a fighter and has remained SO strong blow after blow she is keeping positive and fighting back harder.

we are currently looking into all of Amys options and trying things like oxygen therapy, light therapy , supplements and natural approaches combined with her current medical treatment.

Thank you for reading . x