The fight has just begun 🧡

So after the whirlwind of introducing my ‘new life’ to you all yesterday and all your mind-blowing generosity helping with our fundraising, I thought I owed it to you all to share slightly more information about how we got to where we are. So I’ll try keep it short and sweet and give you a little more insight (without boring you!).. you never know it could help someone spot a lump or bump and get themselves checked as early as we thought I had!

My official diagnosis is that I have rare form of Sarcoma Cancer called ‘Epithelioid Sarcoma’. To be quite honest with you all, I haven’t asked what ‘stage’ I’m at or my timeline in prognosis, I don’t feel like this would be beneficial to any fight I need to try and undergo and with it being so rare, I don’t think anyone truly knows what on earth is going on in this body of mine (it sure bloody shocked all of us!), however what we do know is with it being so rare that there is ‘no known official cure’ for my type of tumours...any type of treatment I have will only slow down their growth and keep it all controlled for however long I can (hence why money for research is so crucial to us). Still feels absolutely insane writing this to you all. I truly don’t think it will ever feel real.

Anyway, in February 2020 just before I went on my hen do (I know, before COVID made us all into banana bread making enthusiasts sat in our pants), I found a small 1cm size lump just above my belly button. I made an apt with my GP the next day and he checked it. He genuinely told me to ‘come back if it grows, feels like a bit of fat’.... thanks mate, I’ll take your advice... 🤦🏻‍♀️

However, me being the control freak you all know I am, it continued to play on my mind for months and I couldn’t settle. Being in a very extremely lucky position during a global pandemic, (yes trust me to find this whilst the world is falling to pot), we managed to find the money to go private and have this lump investigated further (and for this, I am forever grateful for). After numerous ultrasounds/MRI’s and after being told a handful of times that it wasn’t cancerous the surgeon decided to remove this lump on the 5th October. The horrendous weeks of waiting for biopsies was sickening and then my world quickly came crashing down when we found it was a sarcoma tumour. They classed this as low grade and the likelihood of it having spread elsewhere was ‘minuscule’ (in their words).

I then got transferred to Christie’s (which is honestly just a place full of angels and the most amazing people you will hopefully never be ‘lucky’ enough to meet). This is where they did a full body CT scan to find out that this little Sarcoma monster had actually been living in my body for quite some time elsewhere (with no real symptoms on display) and had actually spread to quite a few places (we also found this out on Christmas Eve, I know, brutal 😂). Its all so Bizarre I know!

I’m not telling any of you this because I want sympathy or for you to be like ‘Omg Rach what a awful time you’ve been going through’... yes I know it’s been a shit show from start to finish but this is where we are and we can only move forward with what we know.

I will continue to tell you the rest of the remarkable findings within this 5 foot 2 body of mine as the weeks go on (yes there’s been more! 😂).. but for now, I count my lucky stars for my beautiful baby girl and my amazing, super strong family for picking me up at every single moment where I haven’t been able to get myself up.

The fight has only just begun.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hadrianswallcoasttocoastwalk?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=hadrianswallcoasttocoastwalk&utm_campaign=pfp-share&utm_term=ced2183e91b3419ea7387a0a7896faec&fbclid=IwAR1HXkRiFmPQNLgJpENllwUS4LaiMCLswNINfFhjfItOAKf6r-ZZ1vSMQuM

Rach x