This is an appeal for support in our daughters battle against a brain tumour that has, so far, blighted her entire life.
Our daughter, aged seven, has faught a brain tumour since the age of eight months. Throught the last six years she has been on and off various tyes of chemotherapy with varying degrees of sucess. Some have held it at a managable size, others have reduced its size a little. Sadly in December we found out it had grown quite considerably and several cysyts had developed causing problems further to the ones we knew she already had. This resulted in her needing a massive operation to relieve the pressure in her brain. So on the 12th January she has 9 hours of neurosurgery, we are awaiting the offical results from the scan she had post surgery but the surgeons seemed fairly happy.
The next step is that her doctor wants to send her for radiotherapy to try and kill off the tumour. We have put this off for as long as possible due to the damaging side effects. As she has already exhausted all her chemotherapy options this is the only current treatment option available to her.
All her previous treatments have been administered in Sheffield, at the incredible Sheffield Childrens Hospital. As Sheffield residents this has allowed us to maintain a relaitvly normal family life with our son, Seth, and run our own business, a busy sandwich shop. However, the radiotherapy needed now is to be done in the USA. It is proton beam radiation, supposedly kinder to surrounding tissue than conventional which we have here in the UK.
Whilst the NHS will fund her treatment, it will not fund our living costs there, Seths flight or our commitments here.
Our wish is for us to go as a family, all four of us .
We have been told to expect to be away for around three months.
So to keep our family together and to help ease the financial burden at a time we are unable to work, we are respectfully asking for your help.
Thank you,
Lara and Mark x