2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15
A woman who decided to postpone medical treatment for cancer while pregnant with her daughter died.
Gemma Nuttall, 29, from England, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014, when she was 16 weeks pregnant, according to a GoFundMe campaign established by her mother, Helen Sproates.
Doctors offered Nuttall the option to terminate the pregnancy to remove the tumor, she chose to refuse surgery and delay chemotherapy until after delivery.
As the pregnancy progressed, so did Nuttall's tumor, which grew so much that at 36 weeks gestation in March 2014, it was decided that the doctors would cut the tumor and perform a caesarean section to give birth to her daughter, Penelope, at the same time, according to the publication.
"They kept her awake so she could see her beautiful, but little, daughter, Penelope, come into the world," Sproates wrote on the donation page, "Just to get her to sleep and get her cancer removed."
When Penelope spent the next few weeks recovering in the intensive care unit, Nuttall underwent chemotherapy and radiation. Other studies revealed that he had developed cervical cancer, according to the page. Doctors were able to remove the tumor, and Nuttall remained cancer-free for the next two years until April 2016, when he was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer.
With this latest diagnosis, the family began their GoFundMe campaign to enter Nuttall on an experimental cancer treatment to save her life, and actress Kate Winslet stepped in to help provide funding.
"Let's do everything we can to keep her alive for her 3-year-old daughter Penelope, who loves and needs her mother very much," wrote Winslet, whose own mother was diagnosed with cancer, in a message that was included in the campaign. "We may be able to save your life with these desperately needed funds for this essential treatment. So spread the word out there! "Tell everyone we meet, and please keep the words of support and the incredibly generous donations coming."
Winslet then recruited her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio to help raise funds for the cause by auctioning off three dinners with “Jack and Rose,” which raised $ 1.35 million in early 2018 (donations were split between the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and Nuttall's efforts).
While scans earlier this year showed Nuttall was cancer-free after undergoing immunotherapy, he was admitted to a hospital in mid-2018, and doctors found that cancer had progressed to his spine. Two months later, it would spread, once again, to her brain and lungs. Gemma Nuttall passed away on October 14.
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