EMMA'S FIGHT FOR LIFE - Urgent Help Needed to Fund Offshore Cancer Treatment

$415,384 of $500,000 goal

Given by 3308 generous donors in around 5 months

Help Emma & George fight their biggest fight yet, with funding needed to support urgent life extending cancer treatment offshore.

Wanaka, Otago

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The idea of mortality is a strange thing to process at 30. Unimaginable for most, but something our sister Emma Holden had to confront in 2019.

For over 5 years, Emma has been privately battling an incurable blood cancer; Multiple Myeloma. Most wouldn’t know she has this, despite countless treatments & setbacks, she doesn’t complain & refuses to be defined by cancer. She just gets on & does it.

EMMA'S JOURNEY

Emma sits in the 1% of myeloma patients being diagnosed so young at 30. This was particularly devastating as we also lost our Dad, Tom to cancer at age 46.

She has undergone continuous treatment travelling between various hospitals; Melbourne, Auckland, Christchurch & Dunedin

- Several rounds of chemotherapy & radiation

- Autologous Stem Cell Transplant

- Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant

- 2x Clinical Trials for new-age treatments

- Surgery’s

Plus everything that comes with myeloma; fractures, pneumonia, shingles, list goes on

Despite the above she sets an example we could learn from; life's precious, unpredictable & she lives like everyday is a gift, not a given right.

HOW TO HELP

If you know Emma & George, you’ll know that asking for help doesn’t come easily to them. This page represents a deeply private battle made public. This is their biggest fight yet. EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS

James Holden's involvement (page creator)

Emma is our oldest sister along with George her husband & our brother-in-law.

Use of funds

They need to IMMEDIATELY fund upwards of a whopping $400,000 for OVERSEAS TREATMENT (in China). This is her best chance at prolonging this disease and extending her time with us all.

Emma's Home! 15 May 2025

Emma is home!!

Unfortunately they couldn’t get to the infusion step of the Car T, despite multiple attempts. Her T Cells were unable to be engineered to be fighter cells as they were too weak from so much treatment over the past 6 years.

Good news is there is an exciting new version of Car-T Treatment launching at the same hospital in 2-3 months so she will look to go back to Shanghai then. This version which wont rely on her T-Cells and instead infuses antibodies.

The other good news, her Shanghai team found a treatment regime which is stabilizing the myeloma in the meantime. This treatment whilst it is working, comes with some tough side effects and a high price tag as it is not funded in China nor NZ, so she will source and self fund so she can get some R&R in Wanaka to get ready to go back to Shanghai.

Emma appreciates all the messages of support, she is pretty fatigued so not always able to reply, but keep em coming as she is reading them

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