Emma’s Send Off

*** Update ***

Emma passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by her family on the 22/08/2024.

This fundraiser will now carry over to help support her children in financing her funeral

please know that our family are very grateful for any donations given and has allowed us to fulfill Emma’s wish that she pass in her home.

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Hi, I'm Megan and I am starting this go fund me to help support my sister Emma Stephenson and her children, Lailani and Anton, as she courageously battles through the last stage of her cancer battle.

Emma was first diagnosed with cervical cancer in July 2022. Immediate Surgery and treatment was started and after a few hurdles the treatment seemed to be working.

After a routine PET scan in September 2023 showed that the cancer had spread to numerous lymph nodes and had metastasised to her lungs and liver, two of her ribs and lesions to her spine.

A more rigorous form of chemo was started and completed - with numerous hospital stays for weeks at a time trying to alleviate the immense amount of pain Emma was in. It was then decided to start immunotherapy.

Unfortunately this treatment had to be stopped as the immunotherapy had started to attack the healthy organs.

Given that her cancer has metastasized to multiple sites her cancer is now incurable.

Her treatment has now become palliative.

On the 13 June 2024, We were given advice that Emma’s life expectancy will be somewhere between 4-6 months.

Emma has just turned 41.

As a family we have had to have some extremely tough conversations over the last few months and begin to make plans for life without Emma and make plans to ensure that her children, Lailani and Anton are cared for and are supported through this tough time.

Emma would like to stay at home in Port Augusta, where she is comfortable for as long as she can and we as a family have been providing care round the clock. Because of Emma’s age she is not eligible for a lot of in home help and now this is starting to become financially difficult as those of us who have been taking time from work to care for her have now exhausted all paid leave options.

Emma will be leaving behind her 2 children, her parents, nephews and niece and sister as well as her extended family and friends.

At the request of my sister the news of her having Cancer and her treatment was kept quite private, but its at the stage where we cant keep this quite anymore.

There have been many people already reaching out trying to offer help and support.

We have all seen the power of community and the power of social media so if you wanted to contribute a donation, it would be deeply appreciated and will help to alleviate at least one avenue of stress for Emma.

Thank you for taking the time to read through just a small glimpse of what our family is currently going through.

05/08/2024 - Emma has seen the GoFund Me. She is shocked that people have been so generous and donated to support her.

She says thank you to everyone.

As anyone can imagine, Emma has her good days and the some days are really not so good, we try and keep her spirits up but sometimes the pain is just too much.

But for those that do message her, please know she does read them when she has the energy and while she may not reply please know that she appreciates it!!

10/8/2024 - today was a better day, we managed to get some family photos taken. Emma managed to pull off today so we have some great pics for her kids xo she’ll sleep well tonight.

14/08/2024 - it’s come time to move in the hospital bed. Emma is hating this - she loves her comfy fluffy bed :)