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Sue’s Fight Against Cancer

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This is Sue our mum and she is also a daughter, nan, sister, Wife, best friend ,Our rock, the matriarch of our family and the glue that holds us all together.  




At the age of 56 mum was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She had been suffering from headaches for a little while and had gone to the doctors. She was told her headaches were due to stress and to just keep taking painkillers.  Mum being mum did not complain and just carried on regardless.


Mum wears a weave in her hair (sewn in hair extensions) and it was at her usual 6 monthly hair appointment that all of our lives changed forever.


When the hairdresser removed mums weave she noticed an egg like lump on the top of her head. Our initial thought was that she has perhaps bumped her head or got and ingrowing hair follicle or possibly a cyst or something simple like that. Rather than have another weave on straight away mum left it and returned to the doctors to show the GP the lump. The GP sent mum straight up to the hospital to have some scans tests etc...  We didn’t really think much more of it until we both got a phone call from our mum asking us to go to her house after work as she needed to talk to us both!!!!!    This is when she told us she had cancer of the brain.

Mum had no symptoms apart from the headaches and starting to feel a little tired so this came as a massive shock to us all.  We almost expected to get another phone call from the hospital to say that there had been some sort of mix up with the scans and mum didn’t have cancer but this did not happen.  We were told that to start with mum would have to go into hospital for surgery to remove her tumour so that it could be sent off for examining and then start with chemotherapy once her wound on her head had healed. After examining this is when we were told that mum had a brain tumour which was caused from lung cancer spreading, and it had also spread to her lymph nodes.

The final diagnosis was Adenocarcinoma of the lung and scalp metastasis.  

Adenocarcinoma of the lung is lung cancer which forms in the glands that secrete mucus.

Scalp Metastasis is a rare occurrence in <2% of patients with malignant metastases. Lung cancer has been recognized as the primary tumor most frequently metastasizing to the scalp.  So devastatingly it meant that our mum has stage 4 lung cancer that has spread to her brain and unfortunately is terminal, Our worlds came crashing down.

The surgery went as planned and once mum had healed from her surgery the chemotherapy started. This too at the beginning was going well until mum suffered a collapsed lung and was rushed into hospital. As you can imagine we were terrified of walking into the hospital as we did not know what we were going to walk in to with regards to how mum really was. It was then that it was decided that a new treatment called Immunotherapy might work for her and help to prolong her life. To be told this news was crushing but we had a glimmer of hope with the immunotherapy.  


So we fast forward to December 2020 and our mum is doing really well as the immunotherapy is keeping mums cancer at bay.   Our biggest problem this past year has been how little time we have been able to spend together as a family due to Covid.  All we really want to do is hug our mum. We are both care workers so have had to stay away from mum and be double careful with her which has made us feel as though we have missed out on so much with mum.  Just when you feel that things cant get any worse mum gets a message from her consultant to say that her December treatment will be her last treatment as the NHS are only able to fund 2 years worth of the immunotherapy.

Mums reviews showed that the immunotherapy had absolutely been doing its job at keeping the cancer at bay and we have tried many times to see if it is possible for mum to continue on the therapy but she sadly had her last treatment on Christmas week.  What we now have to face as a family is the fight of our lives.  We cant understand why the treatment would be stopped if it was working so well. This took all of us back to the diagnosis.  The worry, panic attacks,lack of sleep, the anger and confusion as to why the treatment was stopped.  Its like being hit by a high speed train.  Although mum will still have regular scans to check on the progression of her cancer the only other way to continue with immunotherapy is if we pay privately.  


This is why we wanted to share our story with you in the hope that we can raise awareness of the type of cancer that mum has  and to hopefully raise funds to continue mums immunotherapy privately.  


We are who we are today because of our mum and we cant imagine life without her. We have already experienced so much pain and loss in our lives and now we face loosing our hero when she is still so young and has so much more to give.  


We will continue to share our updates with you throughout, of scan results and reviews etc, thank-you so much for taking the time to read our story! Jadine and Becki x


Becki" I get married in July and can not imagine walking down the isle and not having my mum there to watch me. Now that the treatment has stopped I don’t know how quickly the cancer will take over and that scares me to death"


Jadine "I lost my dad when I was 9 years old and I'm not ready to lose my other best friend.  There are still so many more memories to make with mum and I'm only just beginning my life"
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  • Anonymous
    • £20 
    • 2 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • £50 
    • 3 yrs
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Fundraising team (2)

Jadine Dipiazza
Organizer
Raised £3,510 from 58 donations
England
Rebecca Charnock
Team member
Raised £1,068 from 46 donations
This team raised £8,010 from 165 other donations.

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