Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Mum’s final wish is family holiday with her two girls
Now, the young mum from Lochee has one final dying wish — to take her two little girls on the holiday of a lifetime to Walt Disney World in Florida.
She said it was one of the hardest things she has ever had to do when she tried to tell her daughters, sixyear-old Hannah and Holly, 4, how ill she was.
Laura, who turned 28 yesterday, said: “They were asking me when I was going to get better and obviously I didn’t have an answer for them.
“I said to them we’ll just have to wait and see — that I didn’t really know what was going to happen. I asked them what they would like to do most of all and they said they would love us all to go to Disney. “My partner Luke Power and I took them once before but it was only for a couple of days. We have been saving to try to go back and now a crowdfunding page has been launched to try to raise enough money for us all to go as soon as possible.” Laura was told on September 22 last year that she had stage one, grade three, triple negative breast cancer. She said: “Since then I’ve had chemotherapy and lost my hair and strength. I’ve had a double mastectomy and reconstruction but was told they couldn’t remove the tumour in my armpit as it’s wrapped around my blood vessels and nerves. However, I was told that the chemotherapy had killed all the cancer cells.”
Laura said she also got an infection in her stomach following surgery and had to have a big chunk of tissue removed.
She said: “I was connected to a machine for months waiting to heal so I could have my radiotherapy.
“The surgeon said it was only a precaution so I waited. Then one day I woke up and couldn’t use my hand.
“I was told initially that it was nerve damage but then my oncologist thought the cancer was growing again. I’ve had scans and been told the cancer has continued to grow in my armpit and it’s now spread into my chest lymph nodes and into my right lung.
“I have secondary breast cancer and have been told it’s incurable. I will be getting another scan in a few months but the doctors have said all that can happen now is they will give me treatment for symptoms as they occur to help to prolong my life.
“I’m trying to stay positive for my girls — it’s them who are keeping me going.
“Right now I am trying to spend as much time as possible with my girls so they will have l ots to remember.
“Although it’s really difficult I’m trying to keep going from day to day as much as I can. It would be brilliant to go on holiday with the girls and give them something really happy to look back on.
“I can’t think about looking ahead and am just living for the present.”
People can donate by visiting justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ charlie-kean-1. Ourvoice
AT the age of just 27, Dundee woman Laura Gray has been told she has incurable cancer.