Rachel Burns, 22, and her daughter Raeya, 1 – retrieved from GoFundMeA Northern Irishwoman was able to watch her beautiful healthy girl celebrate her first birthday just before receiving expected news: she had just 4 months, give or take, left on this Earth.
After experiencing persistent dizziness and eye irritation, Rachel Burns was told she had an advanced-stage brain tumor with a rare and aggressive mutation, and probably not more than 4 months to live.
Just 22 years old, one can scarcely imagine what the young mother must have been feeling, being that her daughter, Raeya, had just turned 1, she busied herself writing birthday cards for all the birthdays she presumed she would be missing.
“I left that appointment with no real hope and I didn’t know how to tell my mum and the rest of the family, I didn’t want them to get upset. It felt like everything had just been taken away from me at that point,” Burns told Belfast Live.
But if a slim hope of dodging death remains, it's because Burns and her partner acted fast—setting up a GoFundMe to pay for a trip to Germany for an experimental treatment called ONC201.
Discovered in the last decade when scientists screened for compounds that would induce expression of the gene encoding tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) in tumors and thus cause an autocrine or paracrine-induced death in tumor cells, ONC201 may give Burns years more to live.
The results were immediate and dramatic—in just 24 hours the fundraiser had accumulated £30,000, and six days on donations have continued to arrive.
As it stands, the couple have raised £48,000 of their £60,000 goal.
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“I spoke with the doctor yesterday and now we are able to start making plans to go over,” said Burns.
“Belfast is such a small place but you never think that people from all over would show as much kindness as they have done for me and my family. It is a scary time to be going through all of this but this has given me more hope that I can spend some more time with my family.”
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“I just want to say thank you to every single person who has donated so far, you don’t know the difference it has made to me and my family.”
Readers can donate to the family in this desperate hour on their GoFundMe page here.
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