MUM’S NEW CANCER FIGHT
AMUM who has a twoyear-old daughter is battling an aggressive brain tumour for the second time in four years. Charlotte Fulton, 32, said having a toddler had changed her mindset about fighting the cancer and made it all the more painful the second time round.
Despite seemingly successful treatment throughout 2017, she knew she was “not out of it”.
Charlotte – known as Charley by her family and friends – from Llanelli, was first diagnosed with brain cancer four years ago when she had a random seizure while at her now-husband’s house.
Scans revealed she had a large tumour the size of a tennis ball on her brain and she immediately underwent a nine-hour operation to remove as much as possible.
But because of where it is, surgeons were unable to cut all of the tumour out.
After a year of chemotherapy all seemed well for three and a half years or so as scan after scan revealed no signs of the tumour growing back.
Amazingly Charley, who’d been told to freeze her eggs before the gruelling treatment, conceived naturally and she and fiancé Gareth welcomed Seren into their little family in February 2019. Then the couple got married on August 1, 2019, having been engaged for little over a year.
For Charley’s dad, Richard Lemon, it was a joy to see his daughter so happy after all she’d been through.
But at the end of 2020, scans showed the tumour was growing again and despite yet another big operation in early December, the subsequent chemotherapy was seemingly not working. It was growing back quicker than before and more aggressively too.
Charley is struggling following her latest round of chemo and said: “It’s very hard, every day is difficult, every day is the same.”
Husband Gareth (Gaz) tries to do everything he can for her while two-year-old Seren is just too young to understand what her mum is going through.
“She means everything,” said Charley about her daughter. “It’s a lot worse now because of her.
“Now I’ve got something I really, really love, I didn’t have that so much the first time. It’s different in that sense; now I don’t want to die.”
Since that first operation and after having a baby, Charley and Gaz decided to get married in a very low-key ceremony in summer 2019: “It was just family and a couple of friends and that’s what we wanted. We had a great day,” she said.
But just over a year later, while the country was still in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, the family had to come to terms with the news they’d been dreading: the tumour was back.
For Richard, dropping his daughter off for another punishing operation in the middle of a pandemic was particularly hard.
“The first time round we were there for the day,” he said. “But the second time she had to go through it all on her own.”
During the day-long operation, Charley was awake for nearly half of it so doctors could ask her to move her arms and answer questions so they knew they weren’t getting too close to parts of her brain.
The second operation has affected her speech and memory and has failed to stop the tumour’s growth.
Consultants at the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, have now recommended a different type of chemotherapy in the hope this will be more effective and Charley is waiting to see if it’s working. The doctors have been amazing, especially Charley’s surgeon, Richard added.
Richard said: “You can’t dress it up, it’s difficult and we don’t know how this is going to go.
“It seemed to be going OK for a few years but it came back all of a sudden. It’s grown back straight away; it’s not good news.”
In order to give his daughter the best chance at life, he’s desperately looking at other treatments and specific dietary requirements.
“She’s going through it but I can’t do anything,” he said. “I would take her place but there’s nothing I can do. We have to do something.”
One possibility is oxygen treatment, which can slow down or even reverse the growth in some cases and Charley is on a waiting list for this. But alternative treatment is expensive and something the family simply couldn’t afford. Richard set up a fundraising page at Gofundme with an initial target of raising £2,000 but was overwhelmed when, in a matter of just days, the total had reached five figures.
As of yesterday, the page – https://uk.gofundme.com/f/charlottes- treatment- and- dietaryneeds – showed £10,590 has been raised so far.
“It’s a lot of money, just for me,” said Charley. “Everyone is just helping and it’s a lot to take in.
“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out because they’ve changed the chemo and they don’t know how this is going to turn out either.”
She will have an MRI scan in October to see how well the treatment has gone. She knew the last operation hadn’t worked because she started experiencing what she calls “pins and needles” inside her head.
“At this point I haven’t had that and it’s good and that’s the only thing I know,” she said. “That’s good for this point in the treatment.”
For Richard, the response so far to his fundraiser has been overwhelming.
“I was just sitting there, crying,” he said. “It was very emotional. It’s hard to ask for help but I’m glad I did. It’s already been a long journey and I hope we can get to the end of it positively with everyone’s help.”