Please help Aleisha and her young family

Our beautiful young sister Aleisha at just 36 years of age received the most devastating news at the end of last year, that the breast cancer she bravely fought over 2020 and into mid 2021 has now metastasised and spread to her lung, liver, bones and lymph nodes.

She is a loving wife to Leigh and the most amazing Mum to 4 beautiful young children Ebony (7), Harper (5), William (3) and Nicholas (our little angel in heaven).

As a family we are struggling to understand how life can be so cruel to our selfless and caring sister. 8 years ago, Aleisha and Leigh suffered the unthinkable when their first baby Nicholas was born sleeping at 23 weeks. The care and support Aleisha received from the nurses at the hospital inspired her to return to University as a mature aged student and study nursing, with the goal to help support premmie neonatal babies and their families.

She gave up work and threw everything at her study, while becoming a Mum to our gorgeous nieces Ebony and Harper. She graduated while heavily pregnant with our nephew William and we were beyond proud and in awe of how she did this while raising little ones! The cherry on top was when she secured a Graduate Nursing position at Launceston General Hospital, she started fulltime in January 2020 in her first nursing rotation.

Just 9 weeks later, in April 2020 we received the news that Aleisha was diagnosed with Stage 2 Triple Negative Breast Cancer, she had to stop working and began her first chemo treatment on her birthday and spent the next 14 months, doing everything possible to beat this hideous disease, including chemotherapy and a double mastectomy with reconstruction. She even undertook extra chemotherapy tablets after the double mastectomy to ensure everything was thrown at this to kill any possible traces of cancer, so she could be here with her family for decades to come.

Aleisha returned to part-time work at the end of April 2021. She was only able to return part-time as she was still taking her chemo tablets, these tablets caused the skin on her hands and feet to go red and crack like she had severe sunburn as well as other side effects. However, she soldiered on as she wanted to get back to work to help support her family and continue her graduate rotations. Then, just a few months later in November 2021 after undergoing some tests a few days prior, the Doctor called with news no young Mum wants to hear, her cancer has spread to multiple areas and the future is not what this young family thought it would be.

Aleisha and Leigh are very proud and down-to-earth and have never asked for any help, especially since she was originally diagnosed in April 2020. Their respective work colleagues have gone above and beyond to help them over the last few months, which they are forever grateful for. However, with another 6 months of heavy hitting chemo ahead, as a family we are now stepping in, to fundraise to help cover Aleisha’s lost nursing wages during these next rounds of treatment. As Aleisha is a graduate Nurse, she has no further sick leave to access following this news in November.

Being stage 4 cancer, this is very difficult to treat, regardless, as a family we remain EXTREMELY POSITIVE and FOCUSED on shrinking the cancers and finding the BEST TREATMENTS to continue to pro-long her life and keep the cancer at bay. We need our beautiful Aleisha to be that rare miracle that with the help of modern medicine and complimentary therapies, she can live her life as normally as possible with cancer. Aleisha’s own words to her Oncologist were “I can live with this; I just need help to do it”. As a family we hope if any future medical treatments, medical trials or wonder drugs are needed that they are all funded by the healthcare system, however if they aren’t we have no hesitation in fundraising again, to ensure Aleisha has access to the best treatments to pro-long her life.

When Aleisha completes this latest round of treatments and is well enough, she would love to return to the Pediatric Ward at Launceston General Hospital and continue her dream of helping young patients and their families, the place where her nursing dream began.

Finally, due to the kids being young and Aleisha’s university studies, followed by all this cancer treatment, they have been focused on the family at home, not venturing too far. So, if we raise any additional funds above her wages, we would love to send them on a couple of mini holidays between treatments and do memorable things like take the kids to see fun stage productions, go camping, take the kids out to a restaurant, as well as capture as many family photos, videos and create memory boxes for the kids.

Thank you for taking the time to read Aleisha’s story. Any DONATION you can make to help towards Aleisha’s lost wages and helping them make as many fun-filled family memories as possible would be so kindly appreciated. We need our beautiful sister here for as long as we can, so her children can remember what an amazing and loving Mum she is!

Aleisha doesn’t want to leave her beautiful family, she is so determined and is our little pocket rocket – she will do whatever it takes to stay with us for as long as medically possible.

Please SHARE our Sister's story to help our beautiful sister, mother, wife, daughter, gorgeous friend to many and caring Nurse get through these next 6 months.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for all your support.

Bel, Courtnee, Jodie and Adam xo