Help Jenna fight Melanoma!


Some of you may or may not have known, or you might have heard on the grapevine that Jenna was sick. I am hear to tell you everything and hoping that in doing so, all of you wonderful people out there can help us get through this horrible time in our lives. I write this with the heaviest of hearts. My soulmate, Jenna, has been diagnosed with Stage 3C metastatic melanoma.

For those of you who don’t know me, or us, or Jens family, Jenna and I are high school sweethearts. We were together for many years in high school but upon finishing school, we went our separate ways. This was mainly so I could grow up… I was a ratbag teenager! But also so that she could have her two beautiful children, Noah (10) and Ahmana (6). After over 10 years of being apart and having other partners, fate brought us back together, and today we are a very happily, (not-yet) married couple, with two beautiful kids and a sausage dog named Angus. Jen is such a beautiful woman - she’s the strongest, kindest, most loving woman I know and I feel so very privileged to call her my partner in crime!

Some of you may remember that Jenna lost her Dad to multiple myeloma when she was just 16 years old. Her wonderful mum, Karen, is still battling cancer after many, many years of fighting it. This family has already seen their fair share of cancer - and now they are facing it again!

This year in early March, Jen and I were at home enjoying a glass of wine… or three, when she went to hop into the shower and mentioned that there was a mole on her back that was itchy. Jen had had a mole on her face removed mid 2017 that came back benign, however, after losing my Dad to cancer in early 2017, and Jen having a history of cancer in her family, I have become overly cautious. And so glass of wine in hand, I got online and booked Jen an appointment for Friday the 9th of March. The appointment went well - the Doctor shaved the mole off her back and told her it didn’t look like anything to worry about. Now I understand the true meaning of ‘ignorance is bliss’.

On the 14th of March Jen called me at work with the news - the mole that the doctor sent away had come back positive for Melanoma. The doctor, knowing Jen’s situation as a young mother of only 30 years of age, recommended Jen go straight to see the best of the best, and travel to Sydney to see Professor Robyn Saw at the Melanoma Institute in Sydney. She was to be sent to Dr Saw for a wide local excision and potential lymph node removal. The doctor booked it in, and on the 16th of April we travelled to Sydney for Jen to have surgery.

On the 17th of April Professor Dr Saw did a wide local excision and removed two lymph nodes. The surgery went well and Jen, being the trooper that she is, recovered quickly. Prior to the surgery, during Jens presurgey scans, we had been told by an ultrasound technician that there didn’t appear to be any sign of the cancer in her lymph nodes. So we travelled home later that week thinking, hoping and praying that that was the last of it and we could move forward with the wonderful life we have created together.

On Wednesday the 2nd of April Jen got the devastating call from Professor Saw; the biopsy of the sentinel lymph nodes had come back, and there was definite traces of cancer. Again, we were left with minimal information of what this actually meant, but Dr Saw request that Jen come back to Sydney to have a full body scan and a brain MRI. So on Saturday the 19th of May, we drove down to Sydney. Jen had all her scans, and then on Monday the 21st we had two life changing appointments - one with an Immunotherapist from the Oncology Department  and the second was with Professor Saw.

Long story short - Jen was diagnosed with Stage 3C Aggressive Melanoma and we were given two options :

Option 1) We do absolutely bloody nothing and monitor the cancer and just hope that it doesn’t come back! There is a 50%-60% chance it will come back, at Stage 4, which is terminal. It could possibly mutate and spread to other areas within the body.

Option 2) Immunotherapy - which is a brilliant drug treatment offered to cancer patient. This treatment would lessen the chance of the cancer returning down to 25% - 30%!

HOWEVER (and this is where all you lovely people come in), the cost of this treatment is $70,000! Nope, you did not misread that…. $70,000AUD! Stage 3C cancer is not currently covered by the PBS, yet Stage 4 cancer is! Go figure, right?!

I know I probably just rattled on a whole heap, but I want to keep everyone in the loop and I am hoping it gives everyone an understanding of why this wonderful woman needs your help…. Why WE need your help. Her loving family are trying to pull together as much as they can, but I felt it wise to reach out even further. $70,000 is a huge amount of money, but I am praying that we have a big enough support network out there to get Jen the treatment she deserves.

So please, if you know Jen, or her kids, or her family, or me, or if you are just a good person and would like to help, we would genuinely, from the bottom of our hearts, appreciate it.