Jenny Harland Support. Lets get Jenny some practical support!

As many are aware Jenny was diagnosed with stage 3c ovarian cancer in February this year. Ever the little battler she has been through a rollercoaster of emotions, treatment plans, chemo, losing hair and buying wigs ever since and has tackled it with her usual cheery smile and positive thoughts.

Unfortunately Jenny has recently been promoted from a stage 3 to stage 4 cancer patient. Again with her usual optimistic outlook, Jenny is looking for the positives and tackling this latest news head on. Jenny’s oncology team have never been 100% certain about the type of cancer that she has as her biopsy’s show characteristics of both high and low grade cancer. Unfortunately the tumors in her body did not respond to chemo, so her team now believe she has a slow moving, hormonal form of cancer. This comes with both good and bad news. Good news as statistically it means she may have a slightly longer life expectancy but the bad news is that they don’t know how to cure it.

Jenny is no longer undergoing chemotherapy and is now taking a drug called tamoxifen which cuts off the oestrogen receptors on the cancer cells so they can’t feed off the oestrogen in her body. The drug is hopefully going to stop the tumors from growing and promote her immune system to kick in and give her healthy cells a chance to fight back.

Currently Jenny has returned to the UK for a short time after being referred to The Royal Marsden Hospital, a cancer specialist hospital there, where she is hoping to get a second opinion on her diagnosis and also take the opportunity to discuss treatment options that are not available in NZ. She is also taking the opportunity to spend some precious time with her whanau while she is well enough to travel. Jenny’s wonderful brother Thom started a crowdfunding page back in February that helped fund getting Jenny back to England.

Getting Jenny back to her family, she tells me was the most practicably perfect help anyone could offer to her and her wonderful partner Shane. The money donated took an enormous amount of financial pressure off them.

Every little bit helps.