UPDATE 22ND SEPTEMBER 2020

With only 8 days left on the page here is our final update.

Life is pretty rubbish here and Chae struggles everyday, next week he starts his 4th round of chemo and he has asked me to say on his behalf “THANK YOU EVERYONE”.

I would also like to thank every single one of you, for your generous donations and your kind words over this hard time.

You have been truely amazing.

Kind regards Maggie and family. ❤️

UPDATE 9TH AUGUST 2020

Sorry its been a while since the last one.

Chae started his 2nd round of Chemo on the 3rd of July, the drugs affected him quite badly amd was poorly for about 2 weeks but then picked up again.

He then had his next on the 7th August which again is a higher dosage so hopeing he wont be as poorly again.

There is no further update to report at this time, luckily there has been no travelling involved as we have the chemo tablets delivered.

Best regaurds Maggie x

UPDATE 2ND JUNE 2020

Chae has recently finished his first round of treatment – a double hit of Chemo and Radio therapy – although gruelling he managed this through sheer determination as you would expect. His body will now have a rest and treatment will resume in July which will consist of 6 cycles of 4 weekly Chemo treatment – it will be a higher dosage but he will have it for 5 days in the week – 3 weeks off – and this will be repeated for roughly 6 months. He will have a MRI scan sometime early August which will hopefully show how the tumour is looking. Just this week his steroids have been reduced by half and hopefully this will reduce again in a couple of weeks when we go back to see his consultant. There is no change in Chae - in fact he is probably worse than when he started as this is the nature of the drugs.

Chae has been shocked, bewildered and just totally amazed at all the donations and well wishes that he has received = truly you are all so kind and I thank you all so much. We both want to thank Marc so much for his dedication and support that he has shown to Chae in doing this fund raising and of course we will let you have updates in due course.

A shout out to Tage (his brother) who has helped me with all the driving.

Thank you Maggie and family xxx

UPDATE 4TH APRIL 2020

Hello everyone, an update on behalf of Chae.

This week Chae and Maggie met with his oncologist (cancer treatment specialist) at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust in Exeter to discuss plans for the next steps in Chae’s treatment.

The oncologist confirmed that the biopsy results showed a grade 1 tumour (called a pilocytic astrocytoma). However, as there is no option or possibility to remove the tumour with surgery (due to it posing an unacceptably-high risk of causing long-term damage to the healthy surrounding brain tissue), the plan is to administer radiotherapy and chemotherapy in a two-pronged attack.

We hope that this will start in about 3-4 weeks, and will involve radiotherapy sessions in Exeter for 5 days each week for 6 weeks. Chemotherapy tablets will be taken every day during this period and for a base time of 6 months.

As is usual in radiotherapy to the head, Chae will have a special mask made up this week that allows the x-ray beams to be focused precisely on the tumour, thus minimising damage to surrounding areas. The radiotherapy delivery will be directed by a computer software program to avoid human error.

The risks we know about so far are that there may be some short term memory loss, and a degree of damage to certain healthy cells is inevitable, but these should recover (especially as Chae is young). Chae will also continue to take steroid treatment to reduce any swelling and omeprazole (to protect the stomach lining against the steroid), antibiotics and, possibly, some anti-nausea medicines if needed.

In his 20 year history of working with cancer the oncologist said that he has treated 4 patients with a similar diagnosis and of similar age and pathology in this way and the results have been encouraging. He did say that every case is different, and it is impossible to be sure of any predictions at this stage. Nevertheless, his attitude was one of cautious optimism, and Chae now has a positive plan to aim for.

As a family, we want to thank everyone for their continued support and love and I can assure you it is felt.

We will update you again when treatment begins.

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We have received some offline donations that have not been added to the page so far. £100 and £500 from local organisation that wish to remain anonymous. £70 from Phil, Di, Ben and Ryan Thomas and Jason Heard. £20 from Annette, Tessa and Adam Sillifant.

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This is a fundraising page for our friend, Chae Jenkins. I, like many of you, met Chae through our love of rugby. Rugby is his life. He is an incredible player with so much talent for a young 20 year old man. Chae is a massive part of the Cornish all Blacks family and a favourite amongst the team. Chae has been part of the CABs family for years and is a real brother to us all. To name a few of his rugby achievements, he was part of the team to gain the much wanted promotion in the 2018/2019 season and he has also represented cornwall under 20s playing at twickenham stadium in the county finals.

Chae is just one of those characters that everyone needs in their life, he’s just genuinely a likeable chap and one of a kind. Chae I love you big man.

For those of you that have not been reading his blog on Facebook, Chae has been out this rugby season as he’s been going through procedures to lengthen his right leg. Whilst recovering from this Chae received some news that no one would ever want to hear, he has a tumour on his brain. Chae went in for a biopsy in March and following this received confirmation that the tumour is stage 1 cancer (Astrocystoma) which means it can be operated on. The doctors plan to remove the tumour and a operation date will hopefully be set soon.

I have been keeping in touch with Chae and his amazing mum Maggie, I was so happy to receive the news that the doctors will try to help him by removing the tumour. Chae and his family have shown tremendous strength and whilst speaking with them and giving what support I could I just always had the feeling that I wanted and could do more - we all could.

Chae is waiting to hear from the surgeons, the surgeons are discussing which will be the best way to operate on the tumour. Once they have decided the best route and know what disability he will face, Chae has a big decision to make. He will have to choose between disability or time.

I think the first priority is to raise some money in order to ensure that he can get the best aftercare treatment to aid his recovery. Although we don’t exactly know what he’ll need yet building a reserve fund will keep all options open to Chae as and when he faces them in his journey to recovery.

The money will also go towards making Chae and his family’s life that bit easier during these tough times. As you can imagine it isn’t cheap driving around to hospital appointments and parking for the hospital parking.

I know we are living in troubling times which is all the more reason to ensure that we get behind Chae and show him how much we care.

At this moment in time it’s hard to know how much money he may need but would be great to help them out in their hour of need. Hopefully it can take away some financial pressure so his family can concentrate on getting the big man recovered.