Help Nikki Fight Cancer Fund

So often when people hear of a person who has cancer, they wish with all their hearts to be of help. This is the chance to help Me. I write this in the first person for all of us. Many people will visit roads that must be travelled to conquer this perilous and frightening state. A state we are all heir to. All brush against cancer in their lives. This is my story.

Twenty five years ago when I was thirty one I had squamous cell carcinoma of the uterus and cervix. Existentially speaking it was harrowing and deeply distressing but curing that cancer set up many complications for the future. It necessitated the removal of my uterus, cervix, right kidney and a third of my small bowel. Sadly there was extensive radiation damage. I have had to live with being doubly incontinent and with so much other damage that would eventually mean plastic veins and arteries to save my right leg from amputation and to help with the lymphedema. Worst of all I was boarded from the work that I loved, my nursing career was ended. This made me dependant on my utterly caring and dependable partner who has steadfastly financially and in all ways supported me throughout.

Of course there is the inevitable pain which was the daily screen through which I experienced life. Also the invariable misdiagnoses. What I wrote off as the pain of a crumbling back because that was something my father had was in fact the growth of the source of my most recent bout with cancer. This resulted in the removal of my bladder, urethra and vagina. This required a large team of surgeons who need to be paid. Sadly they could not remove the nodes in my groin because of the plastic veins and arteries that feed my right leg.

As they cannot operate on this previously radiated area, and it is also where the plastic veins and arteries run, a PET Scan is required to pin point exactly where the cancerous nodes are so that they can be specifically targeted with radiation. Our medical aid refuses to pay for this absolutely essential procedure. In addition to this radiation I will need chemotherapy which I have had prior to the above operation. To pass through this necessary portal of a singularly rocky path I need to pay for the PET scan and the considerable and inevitably steep doctors fees. So please help me. You will be of direct assistance in my daily fight with this rare and singularly aggressive but we hope, manageable disease.