Police officer dying from cancer makes heart-wrenching £250,000 plea

‘I can’t accept my 5-year-old daughter will grow up without her mum’: Police officer dying from brain cancer makes heart-wrenching plea for help to raise £250,000 for life-extending treatment

• Jade Goffin, 30, was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer in February 2018
• She fought the disease for 12 months with both chemotherapy and radiotherapy  
• However, she began suffering headaches and a CT scan revealed a brain tumour 
• Inoperable, the aggressive form means she’s not expected to live beyond 2020
• However, she is now hoping to raise enough money for life-extending treatment  
• This, she says, would buy her more time with toddler daughter, Eva, who’s just 5 

A desperate mum needs £250,000 for life-saving surgery after she was diagnosed with seven aggressive breast cancer tumours – in her brain.

Jade Goffin, 30, initially thought she’d beaten a rare form of breast cancer after undergoing gruelling treatment, last year.

But the mum-of-one, from West London, was heartbroken to discover it had spread into her lymphatic system – and left her with seven tumours in her brain.

Terminal: Jade Goffin, 30, was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer in February 2018, but – despite treating it with chemotherapy – the cancer later reappeared in her brain

‘The hardest thing is when I look at my daughter and I feel so emotional. I look at her and it really upsets me that this will take me away from her,’ she says.

‘It breaks my heart to think of leaving her. We told her the truth about what is going to happen as best we could but how do you tell a five-year-old that mummy isn’t going to get better this time?’

The mum is determined not to let five-year-old daughter Eva grow up without a mum and now is in a race against time to find £250,000 needed to fund pioneering treatment in the USA – because the NHS doesn’t have the necessary equipment.

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Jade said: ‘Everything is about Eva, I need to be here for her. I cannot accept that my daughter is going to grow up without her mum.

‘Even if I live for five years longer, it is a lot more than the one to two years I have been given in the UK. I think of all the things I shared with my mum, my wedding, my pregnancy, having Eva, and all the things she will miss.

‘If the NHS can’t or won’t provide treatment, we have to look in other places.’

Mum Helen Rayner, 53, lives just three miles from her daughter in Hounslow, West London, and supported Jade throughout the treatment.

Helen said: ‘Jade is amazing and an inspiration to us all. She refused to give into it, for Eva’s sake.

Fighting for more time: Jade (left) with husband Gareth (right) and daughter Eva (centre)

Family ties: The family are hoping to prolong Jade’s life with specialist US treatment

‘One day she came home from chemo and started cutting the grass like normal.

‘Not at any time did she complain or whining, not even when her hair started falling out – she just reached for the clippers and took control.’

Jade was first diagnosed with stage 3c triple negative breast cancer in February last year which is much more common in younger women.

After months of gruelling chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, Jade was given the all clear and looked forward to a normal life with husband Gareth and their daughter Eva.

Helen said: ‘The day Jade was given the news, she left the hospital like her backside was on fire. I literally had to run to keep up with her.’

The family had an offer accepted on a house they planned to make their forever home and Jade returned to work as a London Met police officer in February.

‘The hardest thing is when I look at my daughter and I feel so emotional. I look at her and it really upsets me that this will take me away from her,’ she says

But she began suffering from headaches in May and, after tests, medics diagnosed her with stage four brain metastases, with a total of seven tumours that had spread to her brain.

Jade had cyberknife surgery, targeted radiation which is hoped to shrink the tumours in her brain and prolong her life.

As a side effect from the surgery, she experienced temporary memory loss and is doing lots of puzzles and quizzes at home to recover as quickly as possible and enjoying what precious time she may have left with Eva.

The mum has had her driving license taken away and is no longer able to work, two things she loved before being taken ill, and relies on family and friends to take her to hospital appointments.

Jade said: ‘It is affecting everything about my life. Not being able to drive is a great difficulty. My mood has been really low and it has been so difficult to try to change that when everybody around you, including the doctors, is so negative.

‘The possibility of treatment in America has given us a bit of hope.’

With no known cure, the family are relentlessly looking for alternative treatments to prolong Jade’s life including visits to private clinics and holistic oils and therapies which come at a huge price.

Jade (left) with her mum Helen in happier times – before cancer became part of their reality

Precious memories: Jade (centre) with daughter Eva and her mother Helen in Lapland 2017

Helen said: ‘The cyberknife surgery has really knocked it out of Jade. She has been so determined and I refuse to let her give up. We are trying everything we can.’

The family are rallying together and have created a Justgiving page to crowdfund the £250,000 needed if Jade is to have potentially lifesaving treatment in America where specialist equipment and new medical trials for tumours are available.

Helen, a pub landlady of 22 years, is selling her retirement home in Wales to help fund the treatment, but they are still short of cash.

Doctors in the USA have advised two suitable trials for Jade but her full treatment plan and preferred clinic are yet to be confirmed.

Helen added: ‘We will get the money somehow. There is no way she is leaving a five-year-old behind.’

Helen found three hospitals in the USA which could provide the world-class treatment, of which two have accepted Jade’s application.

The third hospital yet to accept is Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston, where Melissa Huggins was treated for brain tumours nine years ago.

A year after surgery, Melissa was told by doctors her tumours were stable and had significantly reduced and she now wants to help Jade and her family fight for the same chance.

‘Melissa is still here almost ten years later and that is what I want for Jade too,’ Helen adds.

To donate, visit Jade’s fundraising page here 

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