Young mother given four months to live as cancer diagnosis leaves family broken

A young mother has been told she has just four months to live after a devastating cancer diagnosis. Rachael Burns, who is just 22, faced the news after suffering severe headaches and eye discomfort that started eight months ago.

At first it was dismissed as dehydrated eyes, but her condition was eventually revealed to be a brain tumor with a rare and aggressive mutation during an urgent assessment at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

It is a crushing blow to her and her loved ones. And a flood of money has come in from members of the public in an urgent bid to help with treatment not available on the NHS.

Together with her partner Robert, Rachael is the parent of their one-year-old daughter, Raeya. The family are now in a race against time to find alternative treatments that could prolong Rachael’s life.

In an emotional interview with Belfast Live, Rachael from West Belfast shared the heartbreaking task of preparing birthday cards for her daughter for the years she fears she won’t see, reports Belfast Live. She said: ‘Up until last week I had all this hope in my head that I would have a few more years, but at my appointment last week I had to get my mum to leave the room because she didn’t want to hear anything. about prognosis.

“The consultant then told me that anyone who came in with the same thing I had only had nine to 12 months to live and I had been showing symptoms for the last eight. I’ve been told to assume that’s the case and try to make the most of the next four months.

“I left that meeting with no real hope and I didn’t know how to tell my mum and the rest of the family, I didn’t want them to be upset. I felt like everything was just taken away from me. point.

“Everyone has been talking about how brave I was, but I think if I get really down I’ll spiral. I think once people lose hope like that, their bodies give out too.

“Whenever I first found out about the diagnosis, I ordered a lot of envelopes and different things so that I could write all her birthday cards to her when I’m not here to give them to her, so it wouldn’t be easy . ” The young mother revealed that her ordeal began with slight eye discomfort, migraines and dizziness.

“At first they weren’t concerned enough to send a hospital referral, so for months I couldn’t leave the house with my daughter because of these migraines. Finally they did a CT scan and they found a big mass at the bottom of my brain and it was resting on my central nervous system, so that’s why my eye got so bad.

“I was left on a trolley in the Royal for four days in the acute area because they couldn’t get me into a proper room. They finally did an MRI scan and found what’s called a diffuse midline glioma brain tumor – because of where it is there’s no chance they can operate on it.

“They said I would die if they even touched her, so the only treatment option at the moment is radiotherapy for six weeks. With the hope now that I could have some extra time with my family, that’s really what keeps me going. it works right now.

“There have been different processes and in many cases this has extended people’s lives,” she said. “But because the NHS is so limited in what it can provide, we have to look at different countries and that’s how Germany came about.

“This is really the last chance for me to be able to spend extra time with my family, so we’re going to throw everything at it.” In just 24 hours, a total of almost £30,000 has already been raised for her treatment.

Now he has begun making plans to travel to Germany for a potentially life-saving treatment known as ONC201.