Terminally ill Mum raises £120,000 for cancer treatment

AN Omagh mother-of-three given just one year to live has been “overwhelmed” by the response from the local community to a fundraising campaign that has already raised more than £120,000 for her cancer treatment.

Jemma McGowan (27), from Knockmoyle, was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer shortly after the birth of her third child earlier this year.

After exhausting her treatment options locally, Jemma was attempting to raise £70,000 to fund her costs for treatment in Mexico, reaching that target within one day of setting up her GoFundMe page.

Now the total amount raised for Jemma’s treatment has hit £123,184 -and counting – at the time of going to print.

The young mum told the Herald on Tuesday that she never expected to receive the response to her fundraising efforts that she did.

KINDNESS

“When we were making it last night I couldn’t even bring myself to publish it, and I kept saying to my husband even if we could get a couple of hundred quid a day it’ll soon add up. To get this in the first day is just absolutely numbing, I’m overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers.

“I’m just blown away by how much attention it has got. I’m just a wee girl in Omagh, I can’t believe it.”

Jemma had previously been diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was pregnant with her first daughter, Sadie, but it had been detected at an early stage and treated. After clear scans and blood tests for four years, her life was turned upside down earlier this year when she was preparing to have her third child, Betty.

“I found a wee lump after having four-and-a-half years of clear bloods and clear scans. I was never ever CT scanned as they were so sure that this cancer was never going to come back again. It’s a very rare type of cancer that has never been in the UK before, so nobody knows what they are dealing with.

“I was red flagged to go in early and have my c-section and the growth removed. Very quickly the results showed that I had a lung tumour, three tumours on the pelvic bone and then the one that they had taken out.

“It is spreading into the bloodstream and it is eating into the bones. I was railroaded into having chemotherapy three weeks after having Betty. I was told a year to live without it and two years to live with it. Honestly there have been points where I thought it was the chemotherapy that was going to kill me.

“Apart from the chemotherapy I am 100 per-cent a healthy woman, I’m running around the garden playing with my babies and cooking dinners. It just can’t go into my head and I can’t accept that. Belfast is now at a standstill in terms of what they can do for me, and it just isn’t enough for me. So that’s why we’re going to go to Mexico and I have so much faith in it.”

HOPE

With the support of her family and husband Clive, a former Omagh Accies rugby player, Jemma said that she is able to stay positive in the hope that the alternative treatments available at the Hope4Cancer clinic in Mexico can prolong her life so she can see her children grow up.

“We have a very happy home life and I have an amazing husband. I would see through it if I was married a long time and I was in my 60s, 70s or 80s, but I’m only 27. I don’t plan to let this beat me, especially this year.

“If I can get this one year to five years then who knows I could get it to ten years. It’s a scary diagnosis because they automatically think that’s it. I have a big fight in me and I have a big reason to fight – I have three babies.

“Clive has done everything and been an amazing support for me. His employer has been an amazing support as well and letting him take off work and still helping us financially. The support from everyone has been amazing, but Clive has done everything throughout all of this -no matter how down I was or ill I was. He has been amazing.”