How Kate and Leo threw a lifeline to cancer mum given no hope of survival
‘I thought it was a wind-up’
GIVEN the news she had cancer, pregnant Gemma Nuttall was advised to have a termination so she could start a course of life-saving drugs.
But she was determined to keep her baby – and delayed treatment until after the birth.
A healthy girl followed, but after months of NHS treatment, doctors said there was nothing more they could do to save the young mum.
All hope seemed lost … until help suddenly appeared on the horizon in the unlikely form of Titanic stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio – who helped raise cash for pioneering immunotherapy treatment in Germany.
Miss Winslet heard about Miss Nuttall’s desperate fight and – although she has no personal connection to the Lancashire mum – began championing the cause among her Hollywood friends. The star even auctioned off three date nights with ‘Jack and Rose’ – the sweethearts she and DiCaprio played in 1998 movie Titanic.
Five months after Miss Nuttall’s £300,000 treatment began, the 29-yearold yesterday said the therapy was successful and paid tribute to the stars who had helped her.
‘I can’t thank Kate enough,’ said Miss Nuttall, whose daughter Penelope is now three. ‘We thought it was a windup, but then she called and I realised she was serious. I told her I could never thank her enough and she told me not to be daft.
‘She said she had read about my story online, that she had three kids of her own and had thought about what she would be like in that position.’
The family are continuing their fundraising efforts, however, fearing the cancer may return.
Miss Nuttall was given the devastating news early on in the pregnancy that she had an aggressive form of ovarian cancer that would spread without immediate treatment. The dental nurse, from Helmshore, was advised to consider a termination as chemotherapy would be fatal to her unborn child. But she decided to delay the drugs until after Penelope’s birth, telling doctors: ‘I can’t get rid of her.’
‘She saved my life, she was the reason my cancer had been discovered,’ she recalled. ‘I felt I had to repay the favour.’ Miss Nuttall then began a six-month course of chemotherapy and was cancer-free for more than a year before she found a lump on the back of her head. Doctors at Royal Blackburn Hospital later confirmed she had a late-stage brain tumour. Despite surgery, she was told it had spread and the NHS could do no more.
‘I was told I needed to make a will and put things in place for Penelope when I was gone,’ said Miss Nuttall, who had recently split from her partner.
But her mother Helen Sproates, 56, had read about immunotherapy – which harnesses the body’s own natural defences to fight cancer – and sold her house and set up a fundraising page towards treatment at the Hallwang Clinic near Stuttgart.
And then followed an email from Miss Winslet’s PA. ‘Kate told me from one mum to another mum, she couldn’t let my daughter die,’ said Mrs Sproates. ‘She’s lovely, really down to earth and funny, it’s just like chatting to a friend.’
The star contacted DiCaprio and the pair’s idea of auctioning off date nights raised almost £1million. Miss Winslet, 42, was last year given an award by the Screen Actors’ Guild for her charity work. She told fellow stars: ‘The greatest privilege has been learning how to use my voice to help others.’
Immunotherapy still has limited availability on the NHS for some cancers and is in the trial stage for others.