A sensitive story tonight about a Blantyre family going through a painful and difficult time as one of their own is diagnosed with a terminal illness. A family in need of our collective help.
Pictured is Kat, who has just turned 27 on the 2nd of October. She is the first born daughter and is the third oldest from a family of 7 siblings. She has 5 brothers and one sister.
Kat has always been the life and soul of the party. Always smiling, laughing, singing and dancing everywhere she went and got on with everyone. A happy, content young person in their 20s. She’s worked hard every day of her life since the day she left school.
In February this year, the family discovered she had been misdiagnosed with slipped discs and was sent home from hospital. A week later, she was rushed into the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where the whole family were devastated to learn that actually she has melanoma cancer and the worse news followed. She was terminally diagnosed and now paralysed.
Kat’s family fought to have every type of treatment given to her in the hope they could have a least have a little more time with her. They nearly lost her twice during the first four months she was in hospital, once to fever, the 2nd time to a massive seizure but she fought back and was eventually fit enough to come home to be taken care of, around the clock by her mum with no care help, other than from her family.
Everything was being managed fairly well and Kat even managed to do some of her bucket list with the help from many people.
However, her illness really started to take hold further and things started going real bad three weeks ago. Last week, very sadly, the family were told that realistically they only have less than a few weeks left with her.
Kat is worried sick about her mum who has never left her side once since February, even sleeping by her side every night. Its like her mum has to switch off every emotion to be strong to keep Kat and all of the family, some of whom are younger than Kat, strong through this all while screaming in terror on the inside.
Kat has bravely accepted things and already written how she would like her funeral to be planned out and of course the family would like to respect her dying wishes. And this is where YOU can help.
We are asking if anyone would like to help with any small donation to help give this brave, wonderful young woman who has been an absolute warrior and is the light of her family’s heart, the final send off she deserves. This is a family worried about the cost of a funeral at this time of year. A fundraiser has been set up to help with some of the financial burden of Kat’s final days of care and inevitably, her funeral. It is Kat’s wishes not to burden her family with any great cost, keeping plans to a minimum, but we know readers can help and allow Kat to replan. Kat’s mother of course still has Christmas and a large family to think of.
If YOU have been moved by this story and would like to help, no matter how small, you can make a donation here on the family’s GoFundme page. https://www.gofundme.com/f/our-beautiful-kat
We extend our best wishes to Kat and her family at this incredibly difficult time and offer our continued support.
