For those who don't know me, my name is Shelly, I'm 36 years old, I live with my husband and our 5 fur babies in rural NSW. 

On the 9th of July 2025, I was diagnosed with stage 4 Thymoma (which is a pretty rare cancer). My tumour was 15.1 x 11.1 x 12.3cm in size, and was first thought to be slow-growing. I started chemotherapy on the 14th of August with high doses of Doxorubicin, Cyclophosphamide and Cisplatin. After 4 cycles of chemo, my surgeon was happy to go ahead with surgery as the tumour had started to shrink, and he advised it was no longer a high-risk surgery. I was lucky to get a quick admission date and had a Transsternal Thymectomy on the 11th of December 2025. 

I am now 7 weeks post-surgery, and instead of being able to put all of this behind me, I have been told I need more treatment. (My doctors had advised that after my surgery, I would be out of the woods, and of course, I believed them).

Pathology results from my surgery confirmed I have a mix of Thymoma B2 and B3, which are both high-risk, aggressive epithelial thymic tumours. My Medical Oncologist has referred me to a Radiation Oncologist who wants to do 5 - 6 weeks of radiation therapy. He doesn't know yet if I will need longer than 6 weeks of treatment, going in every day, Monday to Friday. He thinks there is a good chance that once radiation therapy is done, I will also need more chemotherapy. 

I have felt so helpless for the last 12 months and have found it really hard watching my husband, Rhys, try to do everything himself because I was unable to do simple things like get food for myself 95% of the time. He has taken me to every doctors appoitment, held my hand while I've dug my fingernails into his hand any time I needed a blood test or IV line put in,(Oh did I mention I have a massive needle phobia?), he has had to put up with me in complete brain fog sometimes days on end and my rollecoster of mood swings when I didn't know if I should cry, scream or punch walls. The fact that this will all continue for the foreseeable future has me feeling completely numb and somehow even more helpless than before.

I am asking for monetary support as this next stage is going to be really tough, not only for me but for Rhys as well. We are a single-income household with little to no physical support most of the time. Any money raised will go towards lightening the load for Rhys and making this really crappy time as manageable as possible for both of us. Things like out-of-pocket medical expenses, extra travel costs, supportive medical aids, the ability to engage in more frequent psychological assistance for myself, ready-to-eat meals, lawn maintenance, and or domestic duties assistance.  

I hate that I've had to create this, as I know everyone has their own things to deal with, and with the cost of living, everyone is doing it tough. If you can't contribute financially, I completely understand and ask if you could either share this with your family and friends or simply send me random jokes, memes or pictures of kittens and cats doing stupid things from time to time. **Apologies if I don't always reply to messages, there are times when I don't want to talk to anyone.

Thanks for reading.