*UPDATED -PLEASE READ*

Firstly, this is something we never thought we’d be doing or that would ever happen to one of our friends, not a position anyone ever imagined we would be in.

But we have realised increasingly that our friend, Helen, needs urgent help and support to get through this terrifyingly, traumatic time.

To understand her journey so far, requires going back to November 2019, when Helen was devastated to find out she was diagnosed with stage 2B endocervical adenocarcinoma - a rare, non H.P.V, locally advanced, cervical cancer.

Helen was catapulted into immediate, gruelling, intensive treatment including weekly full day, I.V. chemotherapy infusions in hospital, daily radiotherapy treatments and then finally 4 Brachytherapy treatments.

This intensive treatment left Helen’s body battered and exhausted, with extreme fatigue, pain and physically struggling just to get through each day.

In August 2020, Helen was overjoyed and very grateful to receive the news that her cancer was now in remission.

The gruelling treatments had worked, she was now cancer free.

Determined to recover, she started working with a physio to overcome the toll cancer and intensive treatments had left behind, to regain some kind of normality to be able to be Mummy again, and to start living again.

Out of the blue, a routine scan in November 2021 brought the unimaginable news that the cancer was back.

Helen was told she was facing secondary cancer, stage 4, incurable, terminal cancer, metastatic to her lungs. With a poor, short, horrifying, life-limiting prognosis. This has left her family and friends reeling, utterly devastated for her and her children. The only avenue available at this point was pallitive chemo.

Since then her friends and family have been frantically trying to help her raise funds to allow her to continue the current and immediate immune system boosting therapies, which she started privately and immediately after the secondary diagnosis back in December 2021, which are helping her. She is keen to continue and carry on improving, for as long as possible. Since December she has received 3 monthly scans, to monitor the progression of her tumours, which are currently showing as stable, with no further progression. We now know, undoubtedly, that this is because of the private treatments and protocols Helen is following. So it makes it even more urgent and important to be able to continue to fund these current treatments.

We are searching globally, to access possible new, private treatments and therapies for her, including vaccines which we are looking at in Germany and the U.S, which would likely run into the tens of thousands of pounds.

Also, and importantly, we need to make sure we can remove as much burden from Helen’s shoulders as possible, to make sure she is living, and not worrying about the little things just now, allowing her to have worry free, quality time with her family.

Helen‘s story has not changed unfortunately, but what has changed is that all the help and support she has had from those who have cared enough to share her story and given whatever they could has given her the strength, courage and resources to take a scary leap of faith onto an non-conventional pathway, which currently seems to be working. She knows you have her back.

We would like to ask for your continued support, this help keep making a difference, a visible tangible difference to someone we care about. We are literally keeping her alive. Please consider donating, no matter how small, to help us support our amazing friend, we would be very grateful for anything.

Please share this with your friends and family, someone somewhere may be able to help us.

Helen has specifically asked us to remind anyone reading this, to speak to your girlfriends, wives, aunties, mothers, daughters and sisters about booking their smear test today. Don’t ignore it. Don’t wait. Never ignore any symptoms. The new smear test in the U.K only detects H.P.V, it does not detect cervical or other gynaecological cancers. So if you have anything that worries you, or feels different for you always, ALWAYS, get checked out - straight away, and don’t take no for an answer. You know your own body best. Don’t put it off.

It could very well save your life.

Thank you.