Back to page

Help support Helen and her family through cancer treatment

  • Post surgery update

      13 August 2025

    Kia ora whanau,

    I'm very pleased to let everyone know that Helen's surgery went well last week. The surgeon said there were "no surprises" during the surgery - in which a section of her colon was removed. She spent 4 nights in hospital post-surgery and she is now relieved to be recovering at home. The removed mass has been sent for screening and we are of course hugely hoping that the tests will confirm there is no residual cancer left in Helen's body! We will know as early as Friday if this is the case.

    Assuming it is, Helen will go onto an intensive monitoring phase - with screening every 3 months to ensure the cancer does not resurface.

    Helen will now spend the next 6 - 12 weeks in recovery - working on regaining her strength. She is hoping to go back to work in as little as 6 weeks all going well.

    Thank you all so so much for your kindness and support. It has been a very challenging year for Helen and her family but the love and support of her community has meant so much.

    This Givealittle campaign will finish in 3 days: on Saturday 16th August, so there's still time for any final donations! I'll post a final update on Friday - hopefully we will have the scan results by then. Feel free to reach out to me personally going forward if you would like to be kept abreast of Helen's progress etc.

    With Love and Gratitude

    Katherine xxx

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • Campaign closing soon

      30 July 2025

    Kia ora wonderful supporters of Helen

    Just a quick heads-up - this campaign is closing soon (16th August)... but there's still time to donate, and please help get the word out so we can do one more push for Helen: post the campaign to your social media and send directly to friends and family. Lets make the campaign go out with a bang!!

    THANK YOU all so much for your support!!!

    Aroha nui xxx

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • Corrected timeline

      21 July 2025

    Hi everyone

    My last update had an incorrect timeline, sorry about that!

    The correct timeline is :

    Surgery date August 7th

    1 week in hospital

    8 weeks off work

    After 3 months hopefully reconnect the colon

    So, quite a bit faster expected healing than I previously thought - which is great! Apologies for the miscomm earlier!

    Thanks for all your support everyone!

    Love Katherine xx

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • Scan results

      21 July 2025

    Hi everyone,

    Hope you're all doing well.

    I have good news and bad news to share... the good news is that Helen has responded well to treatment with considerable tumour shrinkage following chemo and radiotherapy. This is a huge relief and hopefully bodes well for the next stage.

    The bad news is that it's not good enough to avoid colon resection surgery.

    We were really hoping Helen would be among the 20% of patients who don't need surgery, but unfortunately that's not the case.

    So, we are waiting for the surgery date - but it will entail removing a section of her colon, which is obviously a very intensive procedure with a long recovery period of 6 to 12 months. During this time - the hope is that her colon will be able to re-grow and eventually be reconnected, but there's no guarantee.

    Of course the most important thing is to get rid of the remaining cancer, and Helen is committed to doing whatever is necessary - but I'm not going to lie - she's feeling pretty low at the moment.

    Things we can do as her community:

    - keep sending her love and positivity

    - order some meals from Primal Kitchen for delivery to her home: 75A Volga St

    - donate and share the givealittle campaign

    Donations will be a huge boon to her and her family as they navigate the next period (which will necessitate potentially a long time off work for Helen, and associated financial pressures).

    Thanks so much for all your love, kindness and generosity. It means the world.

    Aroha nui,

    Katherine x

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • Helen's progress

      9 June 2025

    Kia ora koutou

    Hope you are all well. Thank you so much for your continued support of Helen and her fam x

    Helen is doing well post radio ... she has been back at work full time and is grateful to be busy.

    She is largely pain free now but suffers from a few ongoing symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, and hormonal changes.

    Another 4 weeks of healing and then the scan results will be in and we should know what the next stage is:

    Either ongoing monitoring, or surgery.

    We are keeping everything tightly crossed that she won't have to endure surgery!

    Thanks so much for your support, whanau!

    Kind regards,

    Katherine xxx

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • Radio complete

      9 May 2025

    Kia ora e te whanau,

    Helen has completed 25 sessions of radiotherapy this week! She is an absolute champion - this stage has been gruelling and she has been wishing for it to be over.

    Thankfully she gets a bit of time to rest and heal now (6 to 8 weeks). During this time new scans will be taken and the oncology team will assess next steps: either progress to surgery, or watch and wait (long term monitoring).

    So thankful to this wonderful community who have been supporting Helen and keeping her in your thoughts at this time.

    I'll report back when we have the scans results!

    Warm regards,

    Katherine x

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • Radiation treatment in full swing

      22 April 2025

    Kia ora koutou

    Hello lovely community of supporters

    Just to let you know Helen is now 3 weeks into her 5 weeks of daily radiation treatments. She is feeling very fatigued and the treatment has been causing bowel issues. Its quite overwhelming and Helen is wishing for it to be over... there are 2 weeks remaining and she's been told symptoms will worsen as the treatments effects are cumulative.

    After this, she'll have 8 weeks to recover and the likely next stage will be surgery - but we'll know more after her next raft of scans (after radiation is complete).

    Thanks so much for all the love, whanau.

    Keep those prayers coming for Helen are her fam x and feel free to share the givealittle page - as it is still receiving donations for a further couple of months.

    Nga mihi nui,

    Katherine x

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • A short reprieve

      23 March 2025

    Kia Ora e te whanau

    Just a little update on Helen’s treatment. Helen has a short reprieve now following her chemo for 3 weeks, so she gets to have a bit of normal life for a short time before resuming treatment. So bring on the fun for this break! During the chemo she has only been able to work one week out of every 2, so she now resumes full time work for this period. When the next stage of treatment starts Helen will work as much as she can depending on how the treatment effects her and what her capacity is.

    The great news is that the chemo has successful shrunk the tumour by 80%!! So that is an amazing result. The margins of the tumour are still too close to the pelvic bone to progress to surgery, so the next stage is radiation treatments.

    This will entail daily radiation treatments Monday - Friday for 5 weeks, plus oral chemo. The radiation is targeted to the tumour in the bowel. It will feel like being burned repeatedly and will damage the superficial structures in the body that the radiation has to penetrate to get to the tumour. So not very nice, but necessary.

    After this stage, there will be more scans to reassess if Helen still needs to progress to surgery: which would be the final treatment stage before going on to a monitoring and recovery programme.

    So to summarise, Helen is doing well and we are thrilled the first stage of treatment has been so successful. She still has a gruelling path ahead of her though, so please keep the love and prayers coming!

    Xxx

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • 6 rounds of chemo complete!

      7 March 2025

    Kia ora koutou,

    Firstly an enormous thank you to the amazingly generous community who have donated to the campaign. I am so grateful to each and every one of you! Please keep sharing so we continue to build momentum for Helen xx

    Helen has just completed round 6 of chemo infusions over 3 months. This marks the end of the first phase of treatment and is a big milestone in this difficult journey. Next there will be a raft of scans to assess how much the tumour has shrunk - and consider the best options for phase 2, which will likely include further chemo/ radiation/ surgery - or a combo of all 3.

    Thank you all so much for supporting Helen and her fam through this challenging time. Appreciate you all so much.

    Much Love

    Katherine xxx

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

  • THANK YOU

      24 February 2025

    Huge shout out to the amazing peops who have already donated xx you are guys are incredible - so grateful to you all! Much love

      0 comments  |  Login to leave a comment