I never imagined I would be writing something like this, but I’m fighting to stay alive for my family, and I desperately need your help.

Earlier this year, my world shattered. At 46, in the middle of a happy, ordinary life filled with school runs, family dinners, laughter and plans for the future, I was told I had a grade four, aggressive Glioblastoma (astrocytoma) brain tumour. Overnight, I went from being fine to being given months to live.

Since my diagnosis in March, I’ve had awake brain surgery (to remove as much of the tumour as possible), radiotherapy and months of chemotherapy. I’ve changed everything I can to give myself the best chance possible, overhauling my diet, holistic therapies and spending hours researching. Every day, I fight with everything I have. But even with all of this, my life expectancy remains just 12 to 15 months from diagnosis.

Unfortunately there are no further treatment options available to me currently on the NHS. But there is hope. A life-extending immunotherapy treatment in Germany could shrink the tumour* and give me more precious years as a mum to my girls and a wife to my husband, Dan.

The treatment costs around £150,000, beyond anything I can reach alone, and I need your help to get to Germany and begin treatment as soon as possible, before it’s too late.

Your support could give me more time. With your help, I have a real chance of staying here for my daughters. Without it, my time will be desperately short. The tumour will continue to grow, and my teenage girls will lose their mum far too early. After everything my husband Dan has already been through, including facing cancer twice himself, the thought of leaving him to raise our daughters alone is unbearable.

I am so grateful for the life I’ve lived. But the thought of leaving my girls, husband, family and friends before its time is something that I can’t accept without trying everything, it’s not in my nature, I have too much to live for.

Whether you are a family member, friend, colleague, or simply someone who understands what it means to love your children more than life itself, please help me access this treatment. Your donation, whatever you can manage, will bring me closer to the care I urgently need. If you can give anything, or even just share my story, it all makes a difference.

From the bottom of my heart thank you for taking the time to read my words and for anything you can do to help. Your support gives my family and me a little more hope, and we are deeply grateful.

*The treatment at the IOZK clinic in Germany consists of combined treatment modalities including virotherapy, hyperthermia, dentric cell vaccination, and therapy with checkpoint inhibitors. Basically, it immobilises the body’s own immune response, enabling it to take up the fight against the tumour growth itself.

Emma Ward, and the appeal ‘Hope for Emma’, is a restricted income fundraising partnership with, and under the umbrella of brainstrust, a Charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as Charity No. 1114634, and registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator as Charity No. SC044642. brainstrust are providing administrative and fundraising support to this appeal, and others of a similar nature. brainstrust does this to help people access novel therapies and treatment more easily and safely.

brainstrust’s mission is to help people in the UK to feel less afraid, less alone, more confident and more resourced following a brain tumour diagnosis. Gift Aid recovered, surplus funds, and funds that are not applied for the primary purpose of this appeal will be used for public benefit to help others diagnosed with a brain tumour.

brainstrust registered office: 4 Yvery Court, Castle Road, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7QG, UK. www.brainstrust.org.uk