Kat's Light

Kat Sassin is organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Gloria Taylor.

Donation protected

Many of you know Kat. You probably know her as UKat or Kat Ballou. Many of you have been supported by her or seen her fundraising efforts for causes like the Australian bushfires. So you’ll know she is a generous, kind, wonderful spirit full of touching words, and life, and wishes and dreams.

What you may not know is that she is ill. And the prognosis is terminal. I can’t believe I’ve had to write that down.

She is a single mother - her son is 13 years old - her other close family is her 74 year old mother. And she has had to find different words, terrible words, to tell them both that their lives will have to continue on without her. That they will only have each other. There will be no more holidays with her son, no more proud moments as he steps out onto the stage because soon there will be no more money for drama lessons, let alone anything else. Her son’s entire future will be uncertain because cancer will steal his mother from him before he can fulfil the things she wanted to be there to see. He has no one else, except her and his grandma. Kat is his only provider.

Kat has been diagnosed with andecarcinoma which is attacking her stomach. Gastric cancer. She is under the care of the Warwickshire NHS. You can see the paperwork in the photo attached to this account. Doctors found lesions in the visceral peritoneal, which typically doesn’t respond to chemotherapy, and carries a median life expectancy of six months, unless she qualifies for (or can fund) an expensive surgery. Six months. How do you possibly fit a lifetime into six months?

The truth is, you can’t. So she needs to make sure there is something left behind for him before she leaves. And that’s where you come in. This GoFundMe will raise money for the surgery she so desperately needs, and if that is not possible, it will be used to support her son's future when she dies.

If Kat or her tweets have ever touched you in any way, if you don't even know her but you’ve been affected by cancer or her story, please help her. Please help her to build a tiny piece of her son’s future.

I’m proud to call this wonderful woman my friend and so devastated to have to help her write this appeal.

Kat has been through so much already, and it will only get harder:

“My life has suddenly changed, unfortunately beyond all margins imaginable.
In the past weeks I have had blood tests, ultrasound, CT Scan, two endoscopies with biopsies from the stomach lining, a PET scan and a laparoscopy with cytology.
I have been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma signet cell - gastric cancer. Signet cell is one of the most aggressive cancers.It’s currently classed as Tumour 3 or 4, nodes 0, metastasis 1.
The surgeon said he had found lesions in the visceral peritoneal (part of the abdominal cavity) this made it inoperable so removing the stomach wasn’t an option and things didn’t look good.
There is an issue with the peritoneal cavity where these lesions are, in the fact that they don’t respond well to chemotherapy as they lie on the outside of the epithelial lining that acts as a barrier to the chemotherapy.
In addition, the cancer is called Linitis plastica...this is because the cancerous tumours are growing inside the actual lining of the stomach wall, as opposed to on it, making it difficult to swallow many foods and causing pain under my rib cage as the lining is stiff and rigid.
Depending on a blood test result I will start systematic anti cancer treatment to try to control the disease and ease my quality of life and if possible survival. After 3 months they will scan me and see if the cancer is responding to the treatment.
If it is we will then talk about the possibility of CRS and HIPEC treatment and gastrectomy, a major operation, which, if you survive the surgery and recovery, shows promise. Or decide if we wish to carry on with the chemo for a further 3 months and then go onto a clinical trial which would give me access to drugs such as immunotherapy treatment, but this depends on whether I respond to the treatment and am accepted onto the trial.
The operation has a high success rate and so there is a chance that I could be completely cured. There is a private operation available which is most certainly unavailable on the NHS due to the pandemic. We're all living under the haze of uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic; times are going to test the whole world and steal many loved ones from us. This private treatment is a 9-12 hour operation and a 14 day hospital stay with global success and long-term survivors.
This would enable me to see my son grow up into a man with his own independence. This is my desire in life. How can I become a mother and then fail him like this? It was never meant to be this way.

The surgery is expensive, but what price do you put on a life? Cancer treatments are being cut as coronavirus spreads and the hospitals struggle to cope. I am having to fight for basic injections on the NHS, let alone the treatments that just a few weeks ago I was told could prolong my life. If it is not possible to have the treatment privately because of the pandemic, all the money I raise will help my son when I cannot.

Hard to believe I have the most aggressive and also the hardest to treat cancer with the gravest of prognosis. Coming to terms with it and acceptance that my life is now on a different road is overwhelming.Not only for myself but for my 13 year old son and 74 year old mother, surely life wasn’t meant to be like this...
As a mother I was looking forward to watching my son grow up into a man, going on adventures together, holidays and days out ,taking pride in his achievements and supporting him through his youth, having a family of his own. Short of a miracle, this will not happen. I will leave a young boy with his grandmother and if anything, this is what hurts me most and will be my reason to fight for my life every day, for my child.
If anyone has a miracle please pass it this way...life surely can’t be this cruel.”