If you’re in Canada and you’d like to ensure we get the full
amount
(using 3rd parties takes 3% off the donation)
please
email transfer me at Mezena@live.ca
and I can manually add your contribution as an offline
transaction here ♥️
______________________________________________
Latest YouTube video explains:
Find all of our YouTube videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/mezenamatters/videos
______________________________________________
The story:
Friends. As many of you already know, my mum, Elizabeth Bagnall was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in November 2019.
After being sick for months, she was taken to the hospital where she
was put on
life support within the ICU unit. They found
pneumonia as well as major fluid
build up around her heart, the
fluid could have caused her heart to caved in on
itself at any point.
After draining the fluid, they proceeded to run many tests which is
where we
received our life altering news. The test results came
back to to reveal cancer...
not only in her breast...it
was everywhere.
The scans showed 11 lesions in her brain (the biggest one being the
size of a
walnut), in her pericardium (heart), ovaries, chest,
neck and other main organs.
The cancer had become so aggressive that it had also affected her
voice by
bringing it down to a faint whisper at best.
The doctors told us that even if the cancer magically cured
itself, the nerve damage would be too far gone and that
she'd
never be able to speak again.
The prognosis was grim...
She was told that there was a 55%
chance to live 2 years from the
first signs of
symptoms, which would bring us to July 2021.
The first few months of her diagnosis, I truly wasn't sure if she'd make it 2 months, let alone 2 years.
I would go to bed each night sobbing into my pillow hoping she'd wake to see another day. I was sure I'd lose my mother soon enough... she was extremely ill.
She went through 5 days of full brain radiation in December of
2019 and has been on many different types of oral chemo since then....
In February of 2020, Elizabeth was too weak to walk on her own,
couldn't keep
food down and end of life care was making regular visits to us...
All medical parties seemed to be anticipating her looming death.
But finally after changing her diet and incorporating some
natural therapies,
she started to pull through and show signs of improvement.
She had made a comeback that no one expected!
She had become strong enough to be able to dress herself and
eventually we were able to return all of her home care equipment.
(walker, raised toilet seat, toilet bars, bed railing, and shower bench).
Her hair started to grow back, the colour started returning into her face AND her voice is starting to croak through (remember how the doctors said that it'd be "impossible"!?)
Our next battle was the weight...it just keeps coming off
*cancer causes cachexia which is when the body literally wastes away due to cancer cells stealing all the nutrients available*
When we began our journey, she was 165lbs and today she is now only 118lbs.
Her oncologist keeps saying that the chemotherapy that she's on
is a good
"
maintenance" drug... knowing that
chemotherapy only
prolongs patients' live by an average of 2
months... these are recent stats and facts.
Unfortunately, due to the high toxicity within the chemo drug,
it will sometimes
kill the patient before cancer does.
(see study below)
See
the full study here >>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3099412/
Elizabeth has suffered some pretty harsh side effects from her
chemo treatment
Her most recent effect is Palmar-Plantar Erythrodysesthesia
(hand & feet get swollen, red and cracking) She needs to ice them
when she's not using them to get relief from the burning and pain.
She has also been vomiting, fatigued, confused bloated and in intense abdominal pain.
So with our oncologist not having a solution(s) for us, I decided to take matters into my own hands and begin my deep research to find alternative therapies.
Well as I found out,
there ARE alternative therapies...therapies that have a 50%
success rate
(compared to the 0% chance our oncologist has given us).
The only problem is that these therapies are not easily available in
our country (Canada).
The alternative cancer treatment centres where we intend on
receiving our therapy (still have to narrow down our options) carry an
approximate cost
between 30-50k USD for
treatment(s)
+ accommodations (for 4-6 weeks) + air fair + any
treatments they send us home with (which I’ve been quoted at
15-16kUSD for)
This was heart-shattering to me that there's hope for my mother but it's out of reach financially for us.
So with all that said I'm desperately asking for support by
creating this fundraiser in hopes that you can help
support our
journey in any way possible.
If you know Elizabeth, you know she is the most caring, loving, kind
and beautiful soul you've ever met.
She brings light wherever
she goes and always has a way of finding the positive in all situations.
She's recently turned 54 years old and still has so much of life to experience.
Elizabeth has helped many people along her journey of life and now she needs yours.
Please help us by donating.
Anything helps.
Even if it's
just $5. That $5 will get us closer.
(Please note that if you use a 3rd party - stripe or PayPal - it will take 3% off the top)
you can email transfer me at
mezena@live.ca
to avoid these deductions
and I will manually add your contribution as an offline transaction
We haven't come this far to have only come this
far... we truly appreciate your
help!!
PS. If you'd like to follow along on our journey, we have a
youtube channel that we share updates on
https://www.youtube.com/user/mezenamatters/videos
