Frankie’s dying wish

Hi all,

My name is Jess and I recently became close friends with Frankie. Frankie is a solo mum to a beautiful 5 year old daughter named Stevie who had special needs.

Frankie always had good physical health. However, on the 16th of July 2022, Frankie found a hard and large lump in her left breast. She didn’t think much of it as she was in good health, however, she went and had it looked at. She was convinced it was a cyst or blocked duct from breastfeeding. Very quickly she was sent for a multitude of scans, and on July 25th 2022, she received the most devastating news. She was diagnosed with Infiltrating Duct Carcinoma, Triple negative breast cancer. Stage 3, grade 3, along with lymph node involvement. Her world stopped. How could she, at 32 years old with a 4 year old daughter, healthy and no family history or genetic factors, have cancer? It made no sense. Her sister, Ash, was there with her. She held her hand tightly while Frankie’s brain went into logical mode and blocked out the emotions. Would she be okay? What would treatment look like? Would she die? She had only returned to work the previous month after 6 years out of the workforce. She was finally happy. Had stability. Was saving for a better house and life for her and Stevie. She was building a life for them. And in an instant, that was all in the review mirror. She relied on her dark sense of humour to barely hold herself together. She was scared. But more so, she was petrified for her daughter. What would happen to her? She had no dad. Who would be able to help her through her unique challenges in life? She was lost.

What followed was a port-a-cath placement surgery (her first ever surgery and only with a local. 16 rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy without reconstruction and level one lymph node clearance and 16 rounds of radiation. She had complications at every point. Her oncologist, Dr Tognela, stated numerous times that she had never seen anyone react so poorly to chemotherapy. She became anaemic numerous times. Couldn’t walk. Numerous blood transfusions. Developed a pulmonary embolism. Pneumonia twice. A staph infection after the double mastectomy which resulted in a wound wash out. She thought this was bad enough. But the worst was yet to come.

After being declared PCR on the 19th of February, 2023, she went on to have radiation. As she had TNBC, which has a 40% of recurrence in the first 5 years, even with all the treatment, she was confident. However, in the last week of Radiation in early May, she was given the news that she had two new growths to her lungs. Unfortunately, they were unable to be biopsied and she was told to wait until August 2023 to see if they had grown and were cancerous. This floored her. Waiting a week for diagnosis for the BC was bad enough. How would she hold it together for 3 months?

Frankie’s health has continued to decline since. She has again been hospitalised (after being hospitalised at least once a month since diagnosis). She has a lot of symptoms of secondary lung cancer. And it is a waiting game now. She is unable to function most days. She is in a constant state of flipping between denial and being petrified. She has had to pay extensive medical bills due to her age. If the most likely, and scary, scenario eventuates, she will have 18 to 24 months left.

So, why am I writing this? Well, Frankie needs your help. As does her wonderful daughter. Frankie has lost her income and isn’t able to get additional government support besides her Single Parent Pension. She had fallen behind on every bill. She barely eats and has lost 30kg. She tries to hold it together for her daughter. She is continuously scrounging money together for surgeon appointments, medications and mental health related appointments. She is drained. She is exhausted. She has nothing left in the tank.

So, I am here today to ask you all to dig deep (and if you can’t, get the word out there of this fundraiser) and donate for Frankie to set up a nest egg for Stevies future. This is to ensure she gets the specialised, yet expensive, education for Stevie. This is to ensure Stevie is able to continue with therapies. This is to support Frankie’s family with funeral costs and the costs associated with learning about and welcoming into their home a child with additional needs. Frankie has already spent the majority of the past year alone, away from Stevie. Stevie has declined rapidly in her development as a result. This is also to ensure Frankie and Stevie are able to engage in regular, ongoing mental health support.

Should the best (yet unlikely) scenario happens and Frankie gets to live a long life, this money will continue to help with her mental health specialists and to help her and Stevie get back on their feet after a horrendous year. It will also be donated to the amazing McGrath Foundation to support the amazing work the Breast Care Nurses carry out day to day. This is a cause extremely close to Frankie’s heart and she’d be lost without her amazing Breast Care Nurse, Erin.

We thank you so much for even reading this and if you donated and/or shared, just know you have our eternal love and Frankie had promised not to haunt you

Jess xx