Funding our mom's cancer treatment - Carol's Journey

Carol’s Story

Carol Player aged 60 is a wife, mother and grandmother to 7 year old twin boys Jack and James. Her two sons Adam and Alex along with friends & family are raising funds to get her the treatment she desperately needs in order to save her life.

Many of you may already be aware of our mum’s cancer story and the journey we have been on to this point. Unfortunately, our family finds ourselves in a position where we are again, having to appeal for help funding mum’s cancer treatment.

9 years ago mum inadvertently sprayed perfume in her eye, at the time thinking little of it that it would turn out to be the start of an emotional roller coaster that has led to this appeal. Three days later she had her eye checked at the City Hospital Birmingham after she had started to lose some vision. Mum was referred to see a professor at Liverpool eye hospital who diagnosed Ocular Melanoma and it was recommended they remove her right eye the following morning. We were all devastated, however this saved her life. We as a family all struggled to come to terms with this.

With the help of family and friends mum made a very good recovery but continued to struggle emotionally whilst trying to remain strong and courageous. No follow up treatment was required, at this stage she just needed 6 monthly MRI scans and blood tests.

In November 2019 after almost 5 years of cancer free scans, spots were found in her liver. Doctors decided the best course of action was to re-section her liver taking away 14% to remove the diseased area. This was very successful however 3 months later after a follow up scan, showed more spots had travelled into her liver which meant another re-section would not be an option. Doctors advised the best treatment for mum would be a trial drug called Delcath Melphalan Chemosaturation, which has proven to be very successful for mum’s type of cancer. Until Covid 19 materialised, it was available on the NHS and our mum was a suitable candidate, however the government have since stopped funding for all trial drugs due to Covid19 leaving us no other option than to raise funds ourselves. Mum was forced to cash in her pension at an early age to have this treatment privately in Southampton costing £40,000 per treatment. The doctors said it would take 3 lots of treatment costing £120,000, leaving us no choice but to raise funds ourselves. .

After three and a half years of positive scans and no further treatment needed, mum was in full remission this treatment had worked.

On mums recent scan showed that the cancer in her liver has started to grow again, which now requires further treatment. We are once again in a position where we have to raise the funds ourselves to keep our mum alive. We now need to raise £80,000 for the two treatments our mum needs.

My mum has always paid into a private health insurance plan for this exact reason, however, despite this treatment now becoming licensed by NICE, the insurance company are still refusing to fund the treatment that has proven to be so effective.

The support, generosity and kindness that we received from everyone during our previous fundraiser was unbelievably overwhelming and it’s impossible to put into words how grateful we are. This support really did save mum’s life- because of this Jack and James have been able to make amazing memories with their nan. Jack and James said that "we have made so many special memories with our Nanny Carol, one of our favourite things to do with our Nanny is going to the beach to fly our special aeroplanes! We love going to the park and swimming too!

Nanny Carol has been there for so many of our firsts: walking, talking, starting school, and riding our bikes" But she needs to see so many more . . . We want her to see them start secondary school, start their first jobs, and hopefully one day have their own families.

"We love our nanny, and we all need your help"

Our mum was also able to watch my brother and I get married, which would not have been possible without everyone’s generosity and help to keep her here. We need my mom to have this treatment so she can live and continue being the kind, and loving Mom, Wife, Nanny, sister and friend to so many people.

Thank you for all your support so far and we hope you can share our story.