Colleen’s Fight

Our family aren’t ones to usually ask for help nor would our mum however, given recent circumstances we have decided to create this GoFundMe on behalf of our Mother/Wife Colleen.

Around August this year our mum began to feel a little off, she started noticing she was becoming off balanced and also slurring her speech among other symptoms. Mum then visited our family doctor who requested she have an MRI, that same day mum found out that there is in fact a 3cm growth located within the Pons area of the brain. The Pons area is part of the brainstem and is responsible for your breathing, sleep/wake cycles and also controls muscles to carry information from senses in your head and face. Over the past few months/weeks mum has been seeing a team of Neurosurgeons and also Neurologists who have requested follow up scans (MRI & pet scan with radiation) see how the growth is and if there’s been changes. About 2 weeks ago it was confirmed the growth is a tumour which will need a biopsy surgery to determine what our next steps are. Mums symptoms have also worsened over the course of the past few months and is currently off work.

We’ve been told this type of tumour and in this area is very hard to even biopsy as the area is hard to access and comes with risks being how difficult of an area it is in, it is likely chemo and radiation will be necessary.

As mentioned, we wouldn’t usually ask for help but any donations at this point would help with ongoing costs/treatments. My dad isn’t able to work due to medical issues himself which has meant mum is a 1 person income for her and our dad. Our mum has been on/off work since this diagnosis, we want to help both our parents during this time and have set a goal of $50,000. We desperately want to ease the financial pressure so that our mum can focus on getting better and not having to worry about the cost of all the medical bills as well as the personal bills. My sister and I are doing all that we can to help contribute to the costs so far but being on the path our mum and our family are on any help is deeply appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read our mums story, although we are in early days we know the road ahead is long and pray our mum is back to good health soon.

Many thanks

Gary, Samara and Khiana