Mum's Radical Remission & Beyond-Karen Kennerley

Hi, we are Jade and Jordan Kennerley and have created this fundraiser to help our Mum Karen Kennerley to achieve radical remission and beyond from her Stage 4 Colon cancer.

Those who know our Mum know she is pretty much a huge heart of love on legs! Mum always puts her needs last if it will help and support others. She will do anything she can for the people she loves, and Mum loves everyone. For 20+ years, Mum has devoted herself to her role as a Teacher for students with Specific Learning difficulties. She doesn’t just support them academically but also emotionally. She loves her students and cares for them as if they are her own. They clearly love her back and she is often invited to celebrations of long left students. Mum is devastated that she cant be with her students right now.

So, we are asking from the bottom of our hearts for as many people as possible to shower Mum with love and help us help her regain her health.

Potted Cancer journey:-

• Jan 23 – Mum diagnosed with a benign colon tumour and then ‘left on ice’ for 4 months whilst local hospital sourced a suitably experienced endoscopist to remove the tumour.

• May 23 – Said endoscopist halted removal as he felt tumour was suspicious, so aggressive biopsies were taken which came back malignant. Previous benign dx put down to sampling error.

• June 23 – Major op to remove tumour and part of her large intestine.

• August 23 – Feb 24 – Mum transferred her care to The Christie Hospital in Manchester as they had helped our Nanna through her cancer journey and she trusted them. 8 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy followed. Mum was often sick, but she powered through like a trooper!

Spanner in the works…..

At the end of March, Mum was rushed into hospital with suspected appendicitis. Unfortunately CT and MRI scans showed progression of her cancer with fast growing bilateral ovarian tumours and some low level peritoneal deposits. We needed help and we needed it yesterday! Fortunately when we contacted her oncologist at Christies, he immediately gathered his forces and between them worked out a plan of attack. Although the gold standard for Mum is an operation called HIPEC (nicknamed MOAS, mother of all surgeries due to its complexity), her tumours are growing too quickly for that so she needs a different but still major surgery to stabilise. This is scheduled for 15th May. Decisions will be made on the next best move after Mum recovers. This may still mean HIPEC.

Herein lies our problem:-

Mum cannot have chemo prior to surgery due to how imminent her surgery is, but this leaves a concern about the peritoneal deposits increasing. We knew we had to form the best team, a multipronged strategy and we believe we have! We have engaged the services of 2 amazing providers to develop an integrative approach to support Mum before surgery and after. We have been advised to throw everything and the kitchen sink at this for at least 3-6 months and then reassess. This will entail 2 x weekly IV Vit C plus Hyperbaric oxygen chamber sessions in Rochdale (£500 per week). In addition Mum needs 30+ daily supplements/off label medications to block cancer feeding and signalling pathways and multiple wellbeing therapies to maintain a positive mindset (This is super important). Unfortunately our NHS is only able to offer standard of care (surgery & chemo) despite many major progressive cancer hospitals in other countries like the USA and Germany providing a number of these 'extra' things as their regular standard of care. However, these extras are going to cost our family around £2000 - £2500 per month on top of general living expenses. We are doing everything we can to raise the funds to pay for this but we desperately need your help.

Please, please, please donate whatever you can, but also if we could ask you to share this fundraiser far and wide on whatever social media platforms you use we will be eternally grateful. Any fundraising ideas you have we welcome with open arms. There is a way, we just have to navigate it and believe!

Love Jade & Jordan xxx