"In January 2015 I was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. It has spread to my liver and I am currently undergoing an intensive course of chemotherapy. My cancer is not curable but it is treatable. My children are now 18 (Ella), 16 (Tom), 14 (William) and 11 (Ned). Ella is on her gap year before starting at UCL in October. She came back from traveling to help look after me and her brothers when she heard. Tom is doing his AS levels, William loves Trumpet and Ned is a great cross country runner and a pretty cheeky character. We are a close, happy, busy family.
My work has taken me throughout Asia and more recently to Africa where I work to improve the survival of women and babies during pregnancy and childbirth- www.mamaye.org.
I have had such a happy and fulfilling life and believe I have been one of the luckiest people alive. My diagnosis has been devastating for us all but as you know I am not the sort of person to take it lying down. My family still need me and I am determined to be around for them for absolutely as long as I possibly can. But to do this I am going to need help. We raised an amazing £75K last year which helped me pay for immunotherapy treatment in Germany (as well as other therapies to support this such as hyperthermia treatment). We have now finished what we raised. It has helped me live well and I have led a pretty normal active life as a result. We need to continue looking for treatments as cancer is clever and learns to adapt, so I must keep ahead of it. This will continue to take lots of money. Any help we can get to help us get access cutting edge treatments not available in the UK will be so gratefully received. I am determined to be here for the rest of my children's childhood at the very least. Please help me do this.
On this site I will my research on treatments and scientific developments, as well as my personal thoughts and reflections on the politics of cancer treatment development."
- Louise
William, Lou and Ella after saying goodbye to the hair- March 2015
Here are some of our favourite family pictures....
