A 37-year-old woman stricken with deadly brain tumours is desperately trying to raise funds for a ‘wonder drug’ so that can live to be 40 and visit Disneyland.
Katie Symmons has undergone countless treatments for a brain tumour that was first diagnosed in 2014 but is now coming to the end of her NHS treatment.
She has been told that she now only has months to live.
Her “only hope” to have more time with her husband is to ask strangers for help to pay chemotherapy drug Avastin which costs £6,900 per three week cycle.
However the drug is not authorised in the UK for brain tumours.
Katie, from Farnborough, Hants, is now hoping she can raise enough cash for the treatment to live another four years and to travel to Disneyland with husband Steven.
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Katie said: “Steven and I always wanted to have children, but I know that’s not going to happen now.
“My dream is to reach the age of 40 so that we can have more time together and to visit Disneyland.
“I have been told that there are no further treatment options on the NHS and my only hope is to pay privately to get the chemotherapy drug Avastin which is prescribed for other types of cancer but not licensed for brain tumours.
“It’s costing me ÂŁ6,900 for each three-week cycle of treatment, a huge sum which we can’t afford as I am no longer able to work and Steven is my full-time carer; so, I am being made to urge strangers for donations to extend my life. That can’t be fair, can it?”
Katie was initially diagnosed with a grade 3 meningioma brain tumour in 2014.
Steven and Katie Symmons
(Image: © Brain Tumour Research / SWNS.com)
She underwent a lengthy craniotomy operation in November that year and defied the odds when she left hospital 11 weeks later.
Paralysed and bed-bound for over a year, she had to live in a ground-floor flat as she tried to rebuild her life following the life-changing effects of surgery.
Katie’s treatment saw her balloon from a dress size 12-14 to size 28 at the time she and Steven got married in June 2016.
Just 18 months later, Katie learned that the tumour was back and she had further treatment and enjoyed a period of stability.
But then a year ago, a scan revealed there were two further tumours and she underwent surgery again.
Devastatingly, in April this year she learnt she had two new tumours and that the original tumour was growing again.
This time surgery was not an option and she was told she had months to live.
Katie said: “To learn at 37 that you have just months to live is unbearable.
“Why isn’t there something which can be done for me, and others like me, so we can spend more precious time with our loved ones?
“My husband Steven has been right there at my side caring for me for the last six years while I have fought every battle of my brain tumour journey.
“You can’t make that kind of love and all I am asking for is more time with him.”
Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet historically just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease.
Melanie Tiley for Brain Tumour Research said: “Katie’s story is so sad. It’s terrible that she is having to raise funds to have treatment.
“Brain tumours disproportionately affect young people and are more lethal than other cancers.
“In fact, 88% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour die within five years.”
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/katie-symmons
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