HELP STEVI TO LIVE

Hi, my name is Stevi Ball. In September of 2022 me and my boyfriend decided to take our first big couples holiday to Australia, to meet some of his family, and to have the holiday of our dreams. Unfortunately, this dream quickly become a nightmare as just 4 days into our trip, I was diagnosed with a stage 3A dysgerminoma tumour, which required a 2 hour surgery, cut short by the fact my tumour had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. Post surgery, I had 5 litres of fluid drained from my right lung to stop me from drowning in my own blood. After a gruelling few weeks of recovery snd physiotherapy, doctors deemed me healthy enough to start a 10 week course of chemotherapy, and after many hours of getting pumped full of toxins, hair I once took pride in was falling out in clumps, getting up in the middle of the night to hug the toilet seat, and hours at a time of nurses trying to find a vein (my arms still bearing the scars of failed cannulations.)

At the end of these unbearable 10 weeks, I sat in front of my doctor who told me that it was unsuccessful. I still had cancer.

Upon returning home, my care was under those at ARI, and they proposed a new regime of chemotherapy, to last 16 weeks, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. however 10 weeks in I was struck with an excruciating pain in my lower back. After a CT scan we were given an answer. My tumours were growing, it was crushing my spine, and beginning to latch on to my bowel. This is called growing teratoma syndrome, a very rare outcome. However I was sent down to London to a specialist team, where I was told that they may have to remove a large section of my bowel and possibly give me a hysterectomy. Just like that, visions of children with the love of my life, and any possibility of a family was cruelly snatched away, all at the age of 21.

miraculously, the surgeon removed only my tumours, and left me scarred and weak, but alive and fighting. After an extensive fortnight of struggling to sit up, shuffling along the floor, I was eventually discharged, and sent home.

At the beginning of August 2023 I had both a CT and MRI, with those result baring the worst possible news.

Within this past 11 months of fighting as hard as I can, and praying for something so simple as life, it hasn’t been enough. I have developed Small Cell Carcinoma of the Ovaries (SCCO) with a 0.001% of developing, and which there has only been 400 cases in all of recorded medical history. For these cases, there has been the occasional patient who can survive and life a long and happy life, most patients don’t live past 5 years of diagnosis.

Just like that, at now 22 years old, I’ve been told that my life is quite potentially over. Gone are the chances of allowing my parents to become grandparents, to marry my boyfriend and become old and wrinkly with him, to just live.

Now is the part where I ask for your help, there’s very few treatments that have been used for this type of cancer, and not all of them are though the NHS, and could cost thousands.

Please, even if all you can do is share this post, all I need is just one more chance, to live.

And if we find that the treatment is too much for my body, and it can very well leave me completely bed ridden, I would rather have 1 or 2 good years than 3 or 4 bad ones, so if the treatment is not an option, I will be using all donated money to achieve my bucket list. Skydiving, swimming with sharks, paddle boarding… anything that makes me feel alive!

Thank you.

Stevi