Appeal

Following a visit to her doctor in April Sarah decided to go privately to see a gynaecologist and  asked her GP for a referral.  Sarah called the NHS first and was told she could not see a  gynaecologist until July.  In desperation she visited a private consultant, who insisted she was  pregnant and made an appointment for her to have a scan.

Sarah and Ray went to Frimley Park Hospital, with high hopes of seeing their desperately  wanted baby where they were told she had developed a large cyst, which had to be removed  along with her ovary.  Although doctors said they thought the cyst was benign, a later visit to the  hospital revealed that Sarah had cancer. The cancer, Neuroendocrine Tumour (NETs) is the  same as that recently developed by top snooker player Paul Hunter, who died in October.

At the end of July The Royal Free Hospital in London gave Sarah four doses of adjuvant  chemotherapy to reduce the chances of the cancer returning. Then in October Sarah was in  such pain that her GP had sent her for ultrasound tests, where it was discovered that the cancer  had returned in three places in her pelvis and there were also signs of a tumour on her liver.

The Royal Free Hospital has now told Sarah that the chemotherapy she was receiving is no  longer working and they cannot operate again because of the danger of spreading the cancer.  The only solution is to shrink the cancer, which led one of Sarah’s work colleagues to mention a  clinic that a friend of his had been to and who’s inoperable cancer is now in remission.

Although the illness is terminal, doctors at a German Clinic the Leonardis Klinik in Bad   Heilbrunn have access to special drugs, tests and medical procedures unavailable in Britain  that will lengthen and improve the quality of Sarah’s life.  Sarah has already been to the clinic  for  a consultation which cost €2,000 (£1,343) plus air fares and car hire.  Future visits will cost  more to pay for drugs that can be injected directly into the arteries supplying the tumours to cut  off their blood supply and kill them.  This is a relatively new procedure called   “Chemoembolization” which is currently not available in this country for tumours located in the  pelvis. The treatment is very expensive, and patients need to stay at the clinic for two weeks at  a  time.