Please help me access treatment to fight Cancer
Donation protected
Angela was diagnosed with primary ER+ Breast Cancer in April 2017 and secondary in 2018.
And now, after fighting for over four years, the NHS has asked Angela if she just wants to give up on all treatment.
She needs to be a mother and carer to her amazing son Aaron and a wife to her husband Dave who works in the NHS. If Angela dies, it would rip Dave’s world apart and on top of the grief, he would have to give up the job he loves caring for others to care for Aaron.
Angela had two previous mammograms over the years when she found a lump, but was told by the NHS it wasn’t cancerous. The lump kept growing and on April 4th 2017, on the one year anniversary of her dad’s sudden death, another mammogram showed a 5cm area of cancer. Later tests would show the cancer was already on the move and had infected 7 lymph nodes.
A single mastectomy and full lymph node clearance followed. She then had 6 grueling rounds of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiotherapy.
Following the treatment she was prescribed tamoxifen as her cancer is fed by oestrogen.
Fast forward 5 months and she had a pre op scan to check her suitability for breast reconstruction. Two weeks later we got the devastating call to say she had sinister blips on her liver.
Tamoxifen, the oestrogen blocker, hadn’t worked and the cancer had spread to her liver. At the age of 42 I was now diagnosed terminal with a median life expectancy of 2 to 3 years.
Things would soon get much worse when the next drugs she was given also failed and her liver was now saturated in cancer. Her outlook was grim and she wasn’t expected to live very many months.
It turns out her cancer is resistant to oestrogen blockers, so the treatments available on the NHS that offered Angela the best chance of survival were of no use to her whatsoever. She also found out she has an inherited mutation in one of her genes which could be responsible for the resistance and also for her getting the cancer in the first place.
In November 2019 she was put onto an oral chemotherapy, Capecitabine. Her oncologist hoped that at the very best this would stabilise the cancer and hopefully give her a few more months with her family.
More recently, in 2020 the SIRT treatment we were hoping for was not available as Angela has too much cancer.
COVID has meant there have been much less clinical trials and now she’s had too many treatments to access the ones that are opening up…. We live a country with a health service that has the ability to keep extend her life but it won’t help her.
Angela has lost her hair again and her nails are that bruised from the drugs we think they’re going to fall off. The drug also makes her incredibly tired yet she’s still caring for Aaron on a daily basis and refuses to let the side effects win. She never complains, she just gets on with it. She is an inspiration.
The financial strain of having cancer is huge but knowing there are potentially life extending treatments out there that only the wealthy can access them is devastating.
The only woman ever cured of breast cancer through TIL therapy had Angela’s subtype and lots of mutations the same as Angela, so we know this can work. There are miracles out there and we’ll do everything we can to help her find hers.
Her biggest fear isn’t for herself or for her two daughters or husband. It’s for her lovely lad Aaron. Her 30 year old severely disabled, autistic son.
She is only too aware that when cancer kills her, there’s a very strong possibility that his life will fall apart.
Aaron has overheard us talking about Angela having cancer a few times. He goes into an absolute meltdown. He’s terrified. If he knows she have an appointment the colour drains from his lovely face. With the mental capacity of a six year old, we knew he’d miss her if she died but she could never of prepared herself for how much he understands that he might lose his mam and it’s breaking his heart and ours.
All hope is not lost though.
We have a plan which will give her a chance at beating this horrible, vile disease and continue to care for Aaron.
But she’s not strong enough to beat Cancer without your help.
The National Health Service (NHS) does not offer many of the cutting-edge treatments available in countries such as the USA.
There is a drug called Sacituzumab that is proving successful in other patients, but it’s not yet available on the NHS. Angela has friends with her cancer subtype who are paying privately for this drug and they’re seeing amazing results.
Step 1.
As Sacituzumab is not available yet she will try Everolimus and Exemestane.
Everolimus is used, with a hormonal therapy drug called exemestane, to treat secondary breast cancer (advanced).
This is a type of targeted therapy called a cancer growth inhibitor. It stops the cancer cells making new blood vessels so it works as an angiogenesis inhibitor as well.
We are hoping to get this on the patient access scheme which is a pricing agreement proposed by pharmaceutical companies to give access to expensive medication.
The cost is £2,900.00 per pack.
This will buy mam some time for the hopeful release of Sacituzumab.
Step 2.
Sacituzumab will hopefully be available soon so at the end of stage 1 Angela is hoping to get access to this.
We anticipate this will cost around £4,000.00 a course.
Throughout this she will need regular MRI scans on her liver and CT scans. She has had three MRI’s in four years but these are taking weeks just to get a date on the NHS but they will be needed to track the progress of the drugs.
This will cost £375.00 for the MRI and £500.00 for the CT scans; mam needs to allow for 5 of each of these.
Private consultant £300.00 each throughout these two treatments.
Step 3.
Ultimately, these will help Angela survive but we need to get her to Yale in America to see an oncologist called Mary Link for TIL immunotherapy. It’s the same trial that cured Judy Perkins the only women ever cured of breast cancer. Angela has lots of genomic mutations in her cancer and so did Judy. We have real hope this could work.
This will cost anything up to £70,000.00.
We therefore need around £95,000.00 to try and save Angela’s life and get her back to the wonderful and beautiful person she is.
Thank you for your time and for reading Angela’s story. Any help you can give, no matter how small, that will help keep my friend here longer, I will be eternally grateful to you all.
Gaynor x
All money raised will go directly to accessing science-based, rigorously-tested medicines and treatment.
Please note: if you’re in the UK a Gofundme donation is eligible for GiftAid - please tick the GiftAid box as it’s a big help. If you’re in the US or Australia a Gofundme donation is tax deductible so keep your receipt.
And now, after fighting for over four years, the NHS has asked Angela if she just wants to give up on all treatment.
She needs to be a mother and carer to her amazing son Aaron and a wife to her husband Dave who works in the NHS. If Angela dies, it would rip Dave’s world apart and on top of the grief, he would have to give up the job he loves caring for others to care for Aaron.
Angela had two previous mammograms over the years when she found a lump, but was told by the NHS it wasn’t cancerous. The lump kept growing and on April 4th 2017, on the one year anniversary of her dad’s sudden death, another mammogram showed a 5cm area of cancer. Later tests would show the cancer was already on the move and had infected 7 lymph nodes.
A single mastectomy and full lymph node clearance followed. She then had 6 grueling rounds of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiotherapy.
Following the treatment she was prescribed tamoxifen as her cancer is fed by oestrogen.
Fast forward 5 months and she had a pre op scan to check her suitability for breast reconstruction. Two weeks later we got the devastating call to say she had sinister blips on her liver.
Tamoxifen, the oestrogen blocker, hadn’t worked and the cancer had spread to her liver. At the age of 42 I was now diagnosed terminal with a median life expectancy of 2 to 3 years.
Things would soon get much worse when the next drugs she was given also failed and her liver was now saturated in cancer. Her outlook was grim and she wasn’t expected to live very many months.
It turns out her cancer is resistant to oestrogen blockers, so the treatments available on the NHS that offered Angela the best chance of survival were of no use to her whatsoever. She also found out she has an inherited mutation in one of her genes which could be responsible for the resistance and also for her getting the cancer in the first place.
In November 2019 she was put onto an oral chemotherapy, Capecitabine. Her oncologist hoped that at the very best this would stabilise the cancer and hopefully give her a few more months with her family.
More recently, in 2020 the SIRT treatment we were hoping for was not available as Angela has too much cancer.
COVID has meant there have been much less clinical trials and now she’s had too many treatments to access the ones that are opening up…. We live a country with a health service that has the ability to keep extend her life but it won’t help her.
Angela has lost her hair again and her nails are that bruised from the drugs we think they’re going to fall off. The drug also makes her incredibly tired yet she’s still caring for Aaron on a daily basis and refuses to let the side effects win. She never complains, she just gets on with it. She is an inspiration.
The financial strain of having cancer is huge but knowing there are potentially life extending treatments out there that only the wealthy can access them is devastating.
The only woman ever cured of breast cancer through TIL therapy had Angela’s subtype and lots of mutations the same as Angela, so we know this can work. There are miracles out there and we’ll do everything we can to help her find hers.
Her biggest fear isn’t for herself or for her two daughters or husband. It’s for her lovely lad Aaron. Her 30 year old severely disabled, autistic son.
She is only too aware that when cancer kills her, there’s a very strong possibility that his life will fall apart.
Aaron has overheard us talking about Angela having cancer a few times. He goes into an absolute meltdown. He’s terrified. If he knows she have an appointment the colour drains from his lovely face. With the mental capacity of a six year old, we knew he’d miss her if she died but she could never of prepared herself for how much he understands that he might lose his mam and it’s breaking his heart and ours.
All hope is not lost though.
We have a plan which will give her a chance at beating this horrible, vile disease and continue to care for Aaron.
But she’s not strong enough to beat Cancer without your help.
The National Health Service (NHS) does not offer many of the cutting-edge treatments available in countries such as the USA.
There is a drug called Sacituzumab that is proving successful in other patients, but it’s not yet available on the NHS. Angela has friends with her cancer subtype who are paying privately for this drug and they’re seeing amazing results.
Step 1.
As Sacituzumab is not available yet she will try Everolimus and Exemestane.
Everolimus is used, with a hormonal therapy drug called exemestane, to treat secondary breast cancer (advanced).
This is a type of targeted therapy called a cancer growth inhibitor. It stops the cancer cells making new blood vessels so it works as an angiogenesis inhibitor as well.
We are hoping to get this on the patient access scheme which is a pricing agreement proposed by pharmaceutical companies to give access to expensive medication.
The cost is £2,900.00 per pack.
This will buy mam some time for the hopeful release of Sacituzumab.
Step 2.
Sacituzumab will hopefully be available soon so at the end of stage 1 Angela is hoping to get access to this.
We anticipate this will cost around £4,000.00 a course.
Throughout this she will need regular MRI scans on her liver and CT scans. She has had three MRI’s in four years but these are taking weeks just to get a date on the NHS but they will be needed to track the progress of the drugs.
This will cost £375.00 for the MRI and £500.00 for the CT scans; mam needs to allow for 5 of each of these.
Private consultant £300.00 each throughout these two treatments.
Step 3.
Ultimately, these will help Angela survive but we need to get her to Yale in America to see an oncologist called Mary Link for TIL immunotherapy. It’s the same trial that cured Judy Perkins the only women ever cured of breast cancer. Angela has lots of genomic mutations in her cancer and so did Judy. We have real hope this could work.
This will cost anything up to £70,000.00.
We therefore need around £95,000.00 to try and save Angela’s life and get her back to the wonderful and beautiful person she is.
Thank you for your time and for reading Angela’s story. Any help you can give, no matter how small, that will help keep my friend here longer, I will be eternally grateful to you all.
Gaynor x
All money raised will go directly to accessing science-based, rigorously-tested medicines and treatment.
Please note: if you’re in the UK a Gofundme donation is eligible for GiftAid - please tick the GiftAid box as it’s a big help. If you’re in the US or Australia a Gofundme donation is tax deductible so keep your receipt.
Organizer and beneficiary
Gaynor O'Connell
Organizer
England
Angela Oliver
Beneficiary
