SOS - Save Our Sadie

Often the chance to help somebody comes all too late.

This plea wasn’t easy to make but we want to give you all the chance to help a friend at a time that really counts.

Back in May, Sadie found out she had some serious health complications as her auto-immune condition had compromised her and made her vulnerable to cancerous cells - and it was soon apparent that surgery would need to happen to fight back.

With only a month’s notice, this created a challenge as Sadie had just started a new full-time job, was saving to move out of a house too unsafe to make a post-op recovery in and left barely enough time for her to prepare, especially with a few hospital-induced phobias from a history of being in and out of hospital due to her auto-immune.

A few of us bandied together to form a support group and we tried as we could to help her overcome these challenges, in a discreet attempt to get through it all…

 

Now there’s two things that we want to point out here that are hard to articulate:

1)    BATTLING CANCER IS REALLY, REALLY HARD – you never know how hard until you’re in the fight. We have seen Sadie go through so many psychological and emotional stages of coping. And often when a new stage is reached, something in the environment or situation pops up to undermine it. Everything sucks and then just as everything is about to suck less, everything sucks more.

2)    EVERYONE IS MORE GENEROUS IN HEART THAN TIME – we all have the best intentions but we don’t have the time. Everyone wants to be there and help and save their friend but the truth is none of us have enough time to really be there. We have seen Sadie carry so much of this herself, being the caretaker when all she needs is to be cared for.

 
Since then:

In the few months that have passed Sadie has succeeded in moving house, she now lives in a houseshare in Walthamstow, thanks to some help from family. She has lost her full-time job. She has been through one major surgery. She has been admitted to hospital multiple times, enduring countless needles, ridiculous waiting hours, lots of fairly unaffected staff just doing their jobs, a confused lady repeatedly wondering into her ward room thinking it was her son’s room, a partly effective and onerous drug routine and god knows how many hours of sadness, loneliness and despair. She will not tell you this, but we will.


The weight of another big surgery, no paid work and months of recovery now looms ahead and what we want is for Sadie to be able to afford to fight. We want to alleviate the stresses and concerns brought by money, so that Sadie can comfortably focus on getting better and only worry about what she needs to. This is now the time for Sadie to ask for your help and this is where it counts.

 
 A message from Sadie:

At the beginning of the month I had surgery to determine the exact location, size, and to remove some possibly cancerous lymph nodes from my abdomen.

My recovery has had a few extra ups and downs than expected. These hurdles mean I can’t return to work as early as planned.

The idea of a crowdfunding campaign came up a while ago and I vetoed it. I don’t want to beg for money from anyone and I can’t even promise you’ll get anything in return, but I’m seriously in the weeds.

So I’m likely to be out of the working game for a while longer. This is where I need your help, if you’ve ever benefitted from my general badassery please have a little rummage and pop in a few bob?

(If you know me from bars you know the drill... ‘I want anything fun that’s in your pockets. Doesn’t have to be money’.)

If you don’t have money to spare I’ll take help in all available forms. I can’t open windows by myself anymore, so there’s deffo a way you can lend a hand.

 
What do I need money for:  

So I can afford little luxuries like: gluten free, pre-cut/pre-cooked foods, food deliveries to my house (because I still can’t walk for 10mins straight let alone carrying cat litter lol), travel to and from appointments/hospital etc.


Don't Panic:  

For those of you, who this is news to, it’s scary and it’s shocking, we know. Sadie is too good to lose. But the good news is, Sadie has a good chance of coming out of this OK. Please remember, thoughts and sentiments are great but can become overwhelming when compounded. Actions speak much louder. It would be amazing if we could all chip in to show our support and help our friend through this.