Mum’s plea after cancer returns

A mum-of-two who survived cancer while pregnant is raising money for treatment after being told she is now terminally ill with the disease.

Naseem Francis fought off non-hodgkin lymphoma in her tonsils 18 years ago after being diagnosed following the birth of her ‘lucky baby’ Elliot.

The former beautician, of St Stephen’s Road in Canterbury, had suffered with swollen tonsils throughout her pregnancy, and shortly after giving birth, started gruelling chemotherapy.

She was given the all-clear, but the cancer has now come back in her lungs.

The 49-year-old, who also has a daughter, Ayesha, 20, is undergoing a new round of treatment after it spread to her other lung.

“They don’t want to call it terminal, but there’s nothing they can really do now - it’s stage 4, it’s incurable,” she said.

“Now it’s about prolonging my life. It’s been a rollercoaster. In 2015, I collapsed and got rushed to hospital and had an x-ray but was sent home. I then got a phone call from my GP saying I needed a CT scan, that they’d seen something.

“If it wasn’t for that, I don’t think they’d have caught it.”

After having a lung removed and chemotherapy, Ms Francis, a non-smoker, started a round of ‘first line’ cancer treatment. But more nodules were then found on her remaining lung.

“I’ve started a second line defence drug but who knows if this will work,” she said.

Ms Francis says she wants to keep one step ahead in case it fails and, inspired by Emmerdale actress Leah Bracknell, who played Zoe Tate and is also battling lung cancer, she is looking into alternative treatments, such as immunotherapy abroad.

“I need to see what I can do if this second line drug doesn’t work,” she said. “I’ve got to do it for my children. My son gets very upset, we’re very close - he was my lucky baby.”

Ms Francis has set up her own fundraising page to help raise money should the treatment she is having prove unsuccessful.

“It would be good if I can have longer with specialist treatments,” she said. “I know they are available but not on the NHS.”

Visit bit.ly/2qzrat5 to donate.