Please help me with medical fees

Hi my name is Helen, I was diagnosed with a rare type of triple negative breast cancer in June last year, which was during the early stages of the pandemic. Despite seeking medical advice prior to my diagnosis I was told it was my age and that there was nothing wrong. It turns out that my type of cancer does not show up on mammogram's nor does it form a lump, triple negative  pleomorphic lobular breast cancer, to give it a name, grows in lines, like tentacles, so cannot be felt during a medical examination, it does however cause dimpling and indents on the outer breast which is how I first knew something was wrong. I can't go back and change what has happened but I would like to get the message out there that if anyone has any worries and feel they have been fobbed off, keep on until they take you seriously.

 

Little is know about how to treat my cancer, other than to give me the same treatment as other triple negative breast cancer patients, which, unlike hormone breast cancers is very limited. My prognosis I keep being told is poor, by the time I was diagnosed it had grown to 120 mm and spread into 10 lymph nodes. So far I have had all the usual treatment, iv chemo (15 sessions), mastectomy and lymph node clearance, 15 sessions of radiotherapy and I am on on cycle 7 of 8 cycles of oral chemo, because despite having platinum chemo initially, there was still residual cancer left in 8 out of 10 lymph nodes and also the breast tissue they removed.

 

I appreciate that I am not alone in this diagnosis, and that there are thousands of woman and men getting told that they have cancer every day. I am not unique but I am desperate to not allow this disease to beat me, so I have researched my cancer to death (apologies for the pun!). I have realised that having normal treatment may not be enough, I would really like to try off label drugs and integrated cancer treatment to try and stay alive as long as I possibly can. Just prior to my diagnosis my husband died of prostate cancer, I had nursed him for 10 years, we have two children and I had to tell them, whilst we were still coming to terms with the loss of their father, that I too had been diagnosed with cancer.

 

After my husband died our household income more than halved, I have enquired about attending clinics to receive this additional line of treatment but the initial cost of the consultant, tests and treatment are beyond my means, I honestly do not want to sit and let this disease beat me, I want to make sure that I do everything in my power to defeat it, I, like everyone else, have so much to live for and I can't bear the thought that the children, who I love so much are left without either parent to support and guide them through their adult years and that any grandchildren won't know the love of grandparents.

 

Thank you so much for reading my story.