A Clare grandmother who is recovering from a stroke, appealed to the public for donations to help fund expenses for her daughter, who was recently diagnosed with a rare form of brain and spine cancer.
Louise Whitehead said her family had been left devastated by her 31-year old daughter Rachael’s recent diagnosis.
“As a family we are not short on love but as you can imagine medical costs, etc, will be very difficult as Rachael continues on her long road of treatment,” Ms Whitehead said.
The Clonlara grandmother, who had to retire from nursing after suffering a stroke five years ago, asked people to donate whatever they could to an online account that she and her daughter’s partner Alan Kennedy have established at https://www.gofundme.com/f/princess-rachael?utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=whatsapp.
Ms Whitehead said her daughter is due to begin six weeks of intense radiotherapy at the Bons Secours Hospital, Cork, next Monday, December 16th.
Rachael Whitehead, had just started working as a midwife when she was given her diagnosis after she attended hospital when one of her legs became painful and numb.
The young mother to Leo, (6), was immediately transferred to Cork University Hospital where she underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumour on the base of her brain. However, doctors also discovered a number of tumours on her spine.
Louise Whitehead asked people to “send my girl positivity and strength”.
“It’s a very rare sarcoma, the doctors actually don't know what sarcoma it is, so it is full steam ahead now with radiotherapy, five days a week for six weeks,” Ms Whitehead explained when contacted.
“Rachael had a craniotomy and she had a tumour removed from her cerebellum, and she had a laminectomy, which is surgery on her thoracic spine to remove part of a tumour from there.”
“I really don't know how she is talking to us, she had the back surgery last Wednesday and she had the brain surgery last Thursday. She is amazing, a walking absolutely fantastic rock of a miracle of a girl, she is absolutely brilliant,” Ms Whitehead said, becoming emotional.
“She has a large tumour in her thoracic spine and she has three further down her spine that we know of at the moment.” “The prognosis is they don't know what type of sarcoma it is or how it will react to radiotherapy.”
“Me being a nurse, and Rachael being a midwife, we are stubborn, and we are like bulls when we get something in our head, so we have been researching a place in Germany which does specialised treatment for sarcomas and I’ve already spoken to Rachael’s consultant about it, and he is going to send off her scans to them.”
“And if we have to go there, we will. There is no such thing as giving up at the first hurdle if radiotherapy doesn't work, but we are going to stay confident that it is going to work and it is going to kill it (the sarcoma).”
“The reason I started the GoFundMe account is that Rachael is not yet entitled to social welfare, because she was training as a nurse, so she has no stamps, and, she is not entitled to any pay from work because she had not enough time worked up as she had been on probation period when she started off.”
“We don’t want any stress or financial worries for Rachael and we know there is goign to be a lot of expenses involved in her treatment.”
“She is going to have to stay below in Cork in a hotel for five nights every week for the next six weeks, there’s petrol money up and down, there’s food, expenses etc.”
Ms Whitehead said she wanted to thank everyone who had already donated to the fund.
She also thanked surgeons in Cork for what they had already done for Rachael, and the charity Bru Columbanus which recently provided accommodation for the family when Rachael underwent surgery.
