J Crushing Cancer

Hi everyone

On the 27th August our world turned upside down in the space of an hour when we learned that Jack, at the age of 36, had a brain tumour. Here is our story....

I'm Emily, Jack's wife. We live in Felixstowe and have two beautiful young daughters, Margot (aged 3) and Elodie (aged 1). We live with our full of beans spaniel Bo, and our aloof cat Rex. I have spent my career raising funds for other people through my work as a professional fundraiser for Cancer Research UK, Macmillan and Mind, and sadly now we need support as a family to help navigate this next chapter of life.

You can follow Jack's personal blog on Instagram via jcrushingcancer and his podcast Mind over Melanoma

The story so far....

Jack was sent by our GP for what we thought would be a routine CT scan on the 27th August 2024 after experiencing some intermittent paralysis in his left forefinger and thumb for a few weeks, this was when we first learned he had tumours in his brain. From that day followed two weeks of hospital stays, specialist neuro oncology appointments, MRI and CT scans, a brain biopsy via surgery and a diagnosis. This was across specialist teams within Ipswich hospital and Addenbrookes hospital.

On the 12th September Jack received his diagnosis, a grade 3 astrocytoma - a rare cancerous brain tumour, we learned that it would be treated with radiation and chemotherapy but this treatment would likely just stop the tumours from growing, not cure them. We were told that on average, patients with this type of cancer survive 3 to 5 years after diagnosis.

It was the biggest shock imaginable, it would be for anyone let alone when you have two very young children. For those that know Jack well, he is incredibly fit and healthy. He has competed at a semi-professional level within OCR for a number of years, and owns Field Fit, a bespoke OCR training facility in Suffolk alongside his coaching business, Jack Carpenter Coaching, for inspiring athletes. Never in a million years would we have imagined Jack would be someone directly affected by cancer. It just shows how vulnerable we all are.

We know that we are going to incur costs as a family associated with this diagnosis and I've detailed below what we would like to use any kind donations towards for now, I'm sure this will change as we navigate the next few years. People have been so willing to help us in our time of need and we are so very grateful.

This is what we'd like to cover with your donations....

We've already incurred significant unexpected outgoings just in the few short weeks since that first CT scan at the end of August. Initially we'd like to use any funds generated through this page to pay back those costs (hospital car parking, travel, subsidence and hotel costs for when Jack had his biopsy at Addenbrookes). Going forwards we envisage that we will continue to use funds to cover things like:

I'll be keeping a full breakdown of what we use these donations for which will be available upon request at any point.

If you can't donate here are other ways you could support us.....

Directly donating money might not be achievable for everyone so I wanted to suggest a few other ways you could help us if this isn't a possibility for you.

How we might use any donations in the future.....

There may well be a time in the future where we have more challenges to navigate that we just don't know about at the moment. I will keep this as accurate as possible as and when we get to it, but for now here are some thoughts about how we might use any donations in the future:

Your support means everything, big or small, financial or non financial. We are so grateful for this community.

With love,

the Carpenter family

Further resources...