Thanks for taking the time to visit Sarah's JustGiving page.

We're heartbroken that our beautiful, amazing Sarah has lost her life to breast cancer. 

Many of you may be aware, Sarah was originally diagnosed in 2010. 

In the summer of 2010, Sarah noticed a small lump in her breast and she was concerned enough about it to make an appointment to see her doctor. Her doctor (a female doctor who will remain nameless at this point) sent her away advising that it was just a cyst! Over several months I noticed her touching it and as a family we kept prompting her to go back, but she trusted her professional opinion saying, the doctors seen/felt it and isn’t concerned. She finally returned to see the same doctor in December 2010,  who scoffed “well there’s no doubt that there’s a lump there now”!

Sarah was finally referred to the experts in the field at Clatterbridge Hospital, where they immediately advised that they didn’t have a good feeling about it. Not only were their fears confirmed but they advised that there was a spread to the lymph nodes in her armpit (the highway to the rest of her body). Where a small relatively non-invasive procedure would have addressed the original pea sized lump,  she was now faced with all the implications of the diagnosis from the painful breast surgery and reconstruction through to the horrendous side effects of the chemotherapy and radiotherapy! Anyone who’s ever seen someone they love go through chemotherapy treatment will tell you how completely heartbreaking it is. Sarahs oncology consultant would say that although he had to give people like Sarah the worst news they could hear on a daily basis, he would never be able to comprehend how it would feel to receive that news himself. 

Despite the 'all clear' that she was advised 5 years later, we received, the devastating news in November 2019, that the cancer had returned in her spine. Again after months of excruciating pain and misdiagnosis, it was established that she had a crushed vertebra as a result of ‘metastasised’ tumours on her spine. She was rushed through painful surgery to try to prevent paralysis. She had to manage the pain that followed with morphine and nerve pain relief every morning and night. 

Since that devastating news, she fought so bravely and with such dignity and tenacity and we hoped, prayed and researched so hard for solutions, that she would come through. In spite of it all, her strength, bravery and positivity was a true inspiration to everyone.

We’ve set up this just giving page in Sarah's honour and memory, in the hope that it will help to prevent others from going through the agonising heartbreak that Sarah, her family and close friends have had to experience.

So I have put in the additional details of Sarahs history to try to send a message as far and wide as possible for the sake of all your friends and loved ones. The message that Sarah would want me to send is that you know your bodies better than anyone in the medical profession. Doctors are not infallible. Often you will know if something’s not right. Tell your family and friends that if they feel that something’s not right, get it checked out ASAP.  Follow it through and don’t take no for an answer and without concern of asking for a second opinion. The original misdiagnosis and the time taken to get Sarah referred was in effect a death sentence. 

Sorry for the War & Peace, but I feel strongly that the messages above are what Sarah would want me to tell. 

RIP my beautiful Sarah.. you are loved and missed more than you could ever know or believe xx