I am a 41 year old mother of two, Abigail, 10 & Joseph, 12 with stage 4 Bowel Cancer, and wife to Richard.

I have stage 4 Bowel Cancer and it has spread to my brain during the current Pandemic, I am unsure if it was already in my brain and just took its time to show or this is due to delays in treatment because of COVID. It doesn't matter really, the fact is now we have to treat it. I am currently on a targetted therapy, however the therapy is now failing and I have to look at other options.

There is treatment available privately, unfortunately I do not have private healthcare, this treatment is standard in the US and also for those treated privately in my siutation n the UK. The drug I would like access to is Avastin and if I pay privately I can get it as a top-up to NHS treatment. Unfortunately Avastin is very expensive and while we may be able to afford a few cycles of treatment the money will soon run out.

I hate asking for money and honestly if you would rather give to a better cause that would help more people I totally get it, but if you don't ask you don't get, and I feel for the sake of my children I need to ask. I need to be sure I have done everything to be there for as long as possible for my kids. They didn't ask to be brought into this world, I chose to bring them into this world and I owe it to them to do my best for them and be there for them as much as possible. This treatment costs around £4,000 a month.

I would also like to use this page to raise awareness and would like you to click through to this link https://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/download-our-brand-new-symptoms-diary/ - this tells you more about Bowel Cancer, the symptoms, and my story - if you feel you cannot give please please do take a look at this link and share it, if it helps one person then it will be worth it.