Help us give our mum a chance to beat rare cancer

Our names are Emilie and Alex, and we are raising money for our mum who was diagnosed with a rare type of vulval cancer in 2017.

Our mum (Billie, 59) first underwent a series of surgeries in 2017 to remove a vulval tumour. These surgeries were successful, however the cancer unfortunately returned, and she had to undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy in 2018.

Even though she was given the all clear in 2019, the radiotherapy left her fighting a multitude of long term after affects, such as damage and fragility of her skin. And this has severely limited her mobility and quality of life.

She has battled infections and cellulitis and been in and out of hospital.

In October 2021, she began having more complications, which she was admitted to hospital repeatedly for. She was told that all of her problems were just skin damage from the radiotherapy and she was sent home with antibiotics and topical creams which didn’t work.

This continued through the beginning of 2022, and in early March of this year Mum was blue lighted to hospital. Again, she was told that the problem was radiotherapy damage to the skin.

Her surgical oncology consultant was not properly informed about her situation for more than 6 weeks of her stay, and as soon as he was informed he immediately knew this was worse than skin damage, and rushed her to a different hospital to be under his care.

She was taken for biopsies, where it was discovered that the entire area thought to be ‘damaged skin’ was in fact all cancerous tissue.

After a PET scan we now know it has spread to her bowel, reproductive organs, and she has positive lymph-nodes.

At this stage, it was thought that The Royal Marsden would be able to perform a large surgery, removing the tumour area and her bladder, reproductive organs and bowel. However after being seen by their doctors it has been decided that she is inoperable.

Chemotherapy is not proven to even slow down the type of cancer she has, and radiotherapy cannot be repeated. This leaves mum with barely any options.

We are her only family, Emilie is 19 years old and I am 26. We never could have fathomed that we would get such short a time with her.

I also have a little boy who is 3, who absolutely adores his ‘Nanna’, and has never spent this long without seeing her in his life (due to hospital Covid rules). She was there when he came into the world, and since he was born has been one of the most important people in his life.

Heartbreaking doesn’t even touch how it feels to think that she might not get to see him go to school, and make some more precious memories with him, and with us.

We’re raising money for treatment using Immunotherapy at The Rutherford Cancer Centre, which can cost up to £80,000 for a cycle of treatment. We hope that this could change the course of mum’s diagnosis and give her more time, and a chance at making more memories with her family.

Mum is our absolute rock, she is a strong and intelligent and amazing woman who is so loved by so many people. She has so much more that she would like to do, and there is so much more left that we want to give her. Please help us give her the chance.

Any help that you can give would mean the absolute world to our family.

Thank you so very much for taking the time to read, and hopefully donate.

Alex & Emilie