A couple have vowed to make their family homeless before Christmas in a bid to raise £160,000 to fund life-saving treatment for their daughter.
Frankie-Rose
Lea has been given just weeks to live, after doctors originally
misdiagnosed an aggressive brain tumour as growing pains.
The seven-year-old's tumour has tripled in size and spread to her spine since she started chemotherapy in August.
Experts
have told Michelle and Sam Lea their daughter's best chance of
surviving is travelling to the US for proton beam therapy.
Michelle and Sam Lea, pictured with
their sons Alfie, right and Freddie, left, have vowed to make their
family homeless in a bid to raise £160,000 to fund life-saving cancer
treatment for their daughter Frankie-Rose, centre, after she was
diagnosed with a brain tumour
The couple
have put their terraced home in Erith, Kent, left, on the market and are
desperate to sell it within the week, to fund proton beam therapy
treatment in the US. Since having chemotherapy Frankie's brain tumour
has tripled in size and spread to her spine, leaving doctors to predict
she won't live until Christmas
Mr and Mrs Lea had planned to cancel
their August wedding, after Frankie-Rose, was diagnosed the same month.
But the seven-year-old told her parents she was desperate to be a
bridesmaid
Applying
for the treatment, sought by the family of Ashya King, on the NHS will
take up to eight weeks - time Frankie-Rose does not have.
Her tumour is growing so fast, doctors do not expect her to live to see Christmas Day.
Mr
and Mrs Lea, who also have two sons, Alfie, 11, and Freddie, five, have
put their three-bedroom home in Erith, Kent, on the market in a
desperate bid to raise the £160,000 needed to fund the treatment.
They
said the terraced property is worth £220,000 but are marketing it at
£170,000 to try and attract a cash buyer, to encourage a quick sale.
The couple said they are prepared to make their family homeless if it saves their daughter's life.
Dinner
lady Mrs Lea, 36, said: 'We are desperate. Right now all we can think
about is getting Frankie to America for the treatment she needs to
survive.
'We will live in a box if we need to as long as we are together.
'We have worked hard, our house is all we have but we will sell it to save her.
‘Some
people might criticise us for making the family homeless when we have
two other children but I would rather do that than have to tell her
brothers we let Frankie die.
'What choice do we have ? If we wait for NHS funding it will probably be too late.’
Frankie-Rose began complaining of pain in her legs in May this year.
Mrs Lea said: ‘Frankie-Rose said her legs were aching, so I told her to rest.
'Like
most kids her age she was always on the go but when it got worse I took
her to the doctor who said it was just growing pain.’
Doctors have told the family
Frankie-Rose may not live until Christmas. To apply for proton beam
therapy on the NHS takes around eight weeks - time the youngster doesn't
have
Mrs Lea
said: 'We will live in a box if we need to, as long as we are together.
We have worked hard, our house is all we have but we will sell it to
save her.' Frankie-Rose is pictured, right with a children's entertainer
dressed up as Elsa from Frozen, at her seventh birthday party in August
But in the weeks that followed, Mrs Lea noticed her daughter falling over and bruises appearing on her legs.
She
went back to the GP and said she was told this time that Frankie-Rose
was flat footed which was causing her balance problems.
But
unconvinced Mrs Lea took her daughter back again and says she was
advised to take her for an eye test and again told it was growing pain.
When
her daughter’s pain got worse she arranged further visits and said on
the sixth occasion she was annoyed to have been booked to see a locum
GP.
‘I felt he wouldn’t know my daughter and made that clear,' she said.
'But to my surprise he was the first to perform a basic neurological test by asking Frankie to follow his finger with her eyes.
'She couldn’t do it and he told me to get straight to hospital for an MRI scan.’
At
Darent Valley Hospital in Kent, an MRI revealed a dangerous build up of
fluid on the little girl’s brain and she was sent by ambulance to Kings
College Hospital in London for urgent surgery the following morning.
The operation on July 18 revealed a mass on her brain stem was causing the build up.
Mrs Lea said: ‘I was shocked. You never think it will happen to you.
'But at the same time I had known all along it was something more serious than growing pains.'
The
following week a biopsy revealed the tumour was cancerous and on August
4 the devastated couple were told the rare nature of high grade
Astrocytoma giloma’s in children made it hard to predict how she would
respond to treatment.
But
the position on the brain stem made it impossible to operate on and
medics hoped to stabilise it with chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy
when she was older and her brain more developed.
Mr
and Mrs Lea were due to marry later that month on August 23 and Mrs Lea
originally wanted to call off the wedding they had booked back in
January but Frankie was desperate to be a bridesmaid.
‘We’d
been so busy in hospital that I hadn’t arranged the cars or wedding
shoes, it was the last thing on my mind but doctors advised us to go
ahead with the wedding because Frankie was well enough and she was
looking forward to it,’ Mrs Lea said.
But first Frankie turned seven on August 15 and the family hastily arranged a huge party, not knowing if it would be her last.
Two weeks later the couple married surrounded by family and friends. Frankie revelling in her role as chief bridesmaid.
Mrs Lea said: ‘It was all about her, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house because nobody knew what the future held.
‘She had lost some of her hair because of the surgery but she looked so beautiful.’
Doctors
misdiagnosed Frankie'Rose's brain tumour as growing pains five times
before her parents were told she was battling cancer
The family have also set up a fundraising page to raise money for Frankie-Rose's treatment
Frankie-Rose
started chemotherapy two days later but suffered terrible side effects,
including nausea, weight loss and a bleed on the brain.
And when medics scanned her last week the tumour was found to have tripled in size and spread to her spine.
That
is when Mr and Mrs Lea were told proton beam therapy offered the best
chance of saving her life and there was no time to waste.
The
family set up a fundraising page and well wishers have already pledged
more than £20,000 - but the family need to raise a further £140,00 for
treatment and travel in the next week.
They
put their house on the market for £170,000 this week and say making
themselves homeless will be a small price to save their daughter’s life.
‘It
would be nice to have a home to come back to after America, but nothing
is more important than saving Frankie,' Mrs Lea said.
Donations
have been flooding in, and a second page has been set up to help accept
money from the public. To help Frankie-Rose visit the new fundraising page here.
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