Helping Maureen fight her liver cancer

This all started 11 years ago when we found out she had pancreatic cancer. Mums a fighter and right from the start she was determined that this "would not get her". Her journey started in Wellington whe she had major surgery. I remember seeing her afterwards and thinking she looked as close to dead as I believed anyone could be. The operation (called a Whipple) which removes the pancreas, part of the stomach and gallbladder - it certainly took it's toll, in fact it took her about a year to recover from it. While the operation was a success, about 7 years ago we found out she had secondary liver cancer. Her health deteriorated to near liver failure and the only option then was to have a procedure called selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT). Back then this cost $30,000 and is not funded through the health system so we had to fund it ourselves. It was very successful but the tumors did start coming back.

In 2011 it was decided that she would benefit from having part of her liver removed as the tumors were in one part. She had the operation in Auckland hospital and they removed 60% of the liver. We nearly lost her then as she got blood poisoning so it was touch and go for a number of days - right over Christmas!

Since that operation she has had regular scans and once again over Christmas time we get more bad news. The last scan has shown new tumors and the existing ones have grown a lot meaning that we have a small window of time in which to do another selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) procedure for her to have any chance. Without this she has maybe 6 months before going into liver failure, vomiting and diarrhoea. However this procedure now costs $40,000 which my parents (dad's 84), can't afford. The last procedure gave her about 5 years and the indications are we could expect a similar result again.

So here we are trying to raise the funds for this procedure and we only have 3 months to do it in so anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated, after all every bit helps.