A mum diagnosed with a rare appendix cancer has made the heartbreaking decision to stop treatment so she can be well enough to spend precious time with her family.
Melissa Lacey has decided to stop chemotherapy treatment in order for her to have a better quality of life in her final days.
The 33-year-old mum-of-one was told it will be a “miracle” if she lives to see the next two years when she was diagnosed with rare appendix cancer, pseudomyxoma peritonei, last year.
It affects just one in three million people.
But as if one cancer wasn’t enough to deal with, Melissa also has bowel cancer, ovarian cancer and peritoneal cancer.
“This hasn’t been an easy decision for me to make,” said Melissa, who lives in Billingham with her “soulmate” husband Carl and their eight-year-old son Evan.
“It was during treatment last week when my tongue began to swell and one side of my face began to drop - I was having an allergic reaction to the treatment, it was just awful.
“It was then that I just thought, do I really want this? I’d had three allergic reactions to three chemo treatments and I had had enough."
One of Melissa’s biggest wishes is now to take her little boy to Walt Disney World - something she insisted she would fund herself even if it meant draining her life savings.
But her old school friends vowed to help and a fundraising page was set up by Michelle Kenny, who last saw Melissa at the age of 16 when they were pupils at Sunderland’s Southmoor School.
The page, ‘Memories for Melissa,’ was initially set up to help raise £500 but more than £2,800 has now been gathered.
The Gazette has also been sent donations to be passed on - with two kind-hearted women sending in a total of £45 after reading of Melissa’s plight.
She said: “There is no promise that the chemo will make me better, it’s just a hope that it will help to slow the process.
“And for me, I’d rather have two years filled with amazing memories with my son and my family and friends, over maybe five years lying in a hospital bed, which I have been every weekend since having chemotherapy.
“It makes my little boy unhappy, he wakes up in the night thinking I’ve died and it breaks my heart. All I want to do is make him happy.
I’m shocked by the response I’ve had. I never did this for financial gain but I’m grateful people have taken the time to think of me.
Melissa added: “If my time is going to be short, the most important thing is to give my little boy the most amazing time he can have and I’m so humbled people want to help me with that.
“I would spend it on making memories for Evan and whatever’s spare, I would donate the rest to pseudomyxoma research.”
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