Kaecee vs. Brain; The Sequel
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Hi All! Some of you may or may not know Kaecee, but we know a lot of people do and they love her dearly. Kaecee and her fiance and family are constantly being overwhelmed by loving messages of support.
So we thought, what better way to let loved ones reach out then to create this gofundme to help raise funds to get Kaecee a custom made lace wig to help her get through the lengthy process of growing all of her hair back after surgery, to help with her recovery while she can't work or drive for at least 4-5 months, and to raise money for brain tumour research.
To know more about her situation and the details feel free to read Kaecee's story below.
Headache /’hedeIk/ - noun – a continuous pain in the head.
This is all it was to me when I was 14, a continuous pain in the head; and this was no medical excuse for my short temper and disinterest in everything when you’re a growing teenager beginning puberty.
The headaches never stopped, and neither did my lack of school attendance or anti-social behaviour.
December 2013, rushed to the hospital with neck and head pain so bad I couldn’t even move. This was two days before a trip to New Zealand. To the doctors a few anti-inflammatories and a pat on the back would send me on my way just fine. This was a bad decision.
With no improvement on my return home in 2014, we decided to push the doctors to test for something more, and that’s when the first lot of MRI’s began.
I never got to go home from the doctor’s waiting room; I was 16 and a stranger had just told me I had a tumour in the back of my head the size of a tennis ball.
Lights & Sirens I laid in the back of an ambulance wondering what would come next as they rushed me to hospital. 5 days I laid there mentally and emotionally preparing for a group of strangers to cut me open and remove this growth from my head, not knowing the extent of the damage it had already done and possibly going to do in the future.
Surgery went well and the tumour was gone, biopsied and benign, and I went home to recover and live life normally again. For 12 months I got to go back to a school environment and start studying again, life was good and the odd headache was partnered with some pain killers.
Every 6 months I would go and have a check-up MRI and everything would be okay.
In 2016 the headaches came back, and in April a routine check-up showed that I had grown two more tumours and they would be monitored over the course of the next few months.
Fast forward a few more months and the next MRI showed that there was yet another tumour, making it three in total and noted down was something called Chiari Malformation Type 1, which in simpler terms means the cerebellum and brain stem is swelling out of the bottom of my skull and creating increasing pressure on my spinal cord.
Again this was another situation to be monitored over the next few months, and again we fast forward a few more months of the same day in day out migraines.
This brings us to January 2017, one of the latest scans showed that all three tumours had doubled in size and the chiari had worsened as well. We where told that surgery would need to happen soon.
In March I will be going into Clayton Monash for my second brain surgery, this time to remove all three tumours and biopsy them, and to fix the Chiari which will entail removing a part of my skull and half of my C1 vertebrae to make room for my brain to swell.
Hoping this all goes well, I will be in bed at home for 6 weeks and not to return to work or driving for another 4-5 months following depending on recovery, and we are all keeping hope that this is the last time this happens.
Kaecee x

So we thought, what better way to let loved ones reach out then to create this gofundme to help raise funds to get Kaecee a custom made lace wig to help her get through the lengthy process of growing all of her hair back after surgery, to help with her recovery while she can't work or drive for at least 4-5 months, and to raise money for brain tumour research.
To know more about her situation and the details feel free to read Kaecee's story below.
Headache /’hedeIk/ - noun – a continuous pain in the head.
This is all it was to me when I was 14, a continuous pain in the head; and this was no medical excuse for my short temper and disinterest in everything when you’re a growing teenager beginning puberty.
The headaches never stopped, and neither did my lack of school attendance or anti-social behaviour.
December 2013, rushed to the hospital with neck and head pain so bad I couldn’t even move. This was two days before a trip to New Zealand. To the doctors a few anti-inflammatories and a pat on the back would send me on my way just fine. This was a bad decision.
With no improvement on my return home in 2014, we decided to push the doctors to test for something more, and that’s when the first lot of MRI’s began.
I never got to go home from the doctor’s waiting room; I was 16 and a stranger had just told me I had a tumour in the back of my head the size of a tennis ball.
Lights & Sirens I laid in the back of an ambulance wondering what would come next as they rushed me to hospital. 5 days I laid there mentally and emotionally preparing for a group of strangers to cut me open and remove this growth from my head, not knowing the extent of the damage it had already done and possibly going to do in the future.
Surgery went well and the tumour was gone, biopsied and benign, and I went home to recover and live life normally again. For 12 months I got to go back to a school environment and start studying again, life was good and the odd headache was partnered with some pain killers.
Every 6 months I would go and have a check-up MRI and everything would be okay.
In 2016 the headaches came back, and in April a routine check-up showed that I had grown two more tumours and they would be monitored over the course of the next few months.
Fast forward a few more months and the next MRI showed that there was yet another tumour, making it three in total and noted down was something called Chiari Malformation Type 1, which in simpler terms means the cerebellum and brain stem is swelling out of the bottom of my skull and creating increasing pressure on my spinal cord.
Again this was another situation to be monitored over the next few months, and again we fast forward a few more months of the same day in day out migraines.
This brings us to January 2017, one of the latest scans showed that all three tumours had doubled in size and the chiari had worsened as well. We where told that surgery would need to happen soon.
In March I will be going into Clayton Monash for my second brain surgery, this time to remove all three tumours and biopsy them, and to fix the Chiari which will entail removing a part of my skull and half of my C1 vertebrae to make room for my brain to swell.
Hoping this all goes well, I will be in bed at home for 6 weeks and not to return to work or driving for another 4-5 months following depending on recovery, and we are all keeping hope that this is the last time this happens.
Kaecee x
Organizer
Danielle Duke
Organizer
Berwick VIC
