Fundraising mum now faces own cancer fight

Louise Walsh

A determined mum who fund-raised to help her son complete his bucket list before he went blind is now fighting her own battle against an extremely rare type of cancer.

Florist Carol Haslam (37) is now facing at least partial amputation of her left hand in the coming month after chemotherapy treatment proved useless to shrink a synovial sarcoma, first diagnosed just last April.

The brave mum from Ratoath in Co. Meath said she would rather lose her hand to get rid of the cancer in order to see her two children Daniel (9) and Niamh (11) grow up.

Carol's efforts to help her son Daniel - who has autism -- see his bucket list of the world's architectural sites before he lost his eyesight tugged at the nation's heart strings in 2015 who dug deep to realise his dream.

Since then Daniel, who was diagnosed with optical atrophy, has ticked most places off the list.  Unfortunately a trip to see the Eiffel Tour in France had to be postponed recently due to Carol starting her chemotherapy. 

Unbelievably Carol maintains a positive outlook through it all and laughs that there was actually a better chance of her winning the lottery than getting the rare form of 'weird' cancer that she has.

'It only happens to between one and three people in every million and I'm the one.  You've a better chance of winning the lottery than getting this, it's extraordinarily rare,' she said.

Sarcoma is a rare form of cancer, which occurs in the connective tissue of the body, such as fat, skin tissue and nerves.  Synovial sarcoma is an extremely rare type of this cancer, found in the extremities of the arms and legs.

'My hand started hurting around Christmas and so I went to my GP and a subsequent x-ray revealed nothing.  I had carpal tunnel surgery before so I requested to see the same hand specialist and got an appointment for March.

'I was sent for an MRI and follow-up appointments were made very quickly. But I still wasn't thinking anything of it because like, who gets hand cancer,' she laughed.

'I was told I had a sarcoma just two days before Dan's planned trip to the Grand Canyon but the doctors said to keep our plans as it would take a few weeks to get a team of medical experts in place to assess my situation.

'It wasn't the joyest of holidays but I wasn't going to let it ruin it either.'

When she got home, she was told that as there was blood supply to two of her fingers, she may not need a full amputation.

'My husband Kev nearly passed out but I processed it and dealt with it.  It's not the worst news I've ever had.'

Carol took control of the situation before the chemotherapy and had her hair cut short and donated to the Rapunzel foundation.

'It was still a shock though when I went into the shower and the whole lot of what was left fell off in one go.'

Her three months of chemotherapy finished two weeks ago and Carol faced the news that her tumour had grown.  The treatment hadn't worked.

Remaining upbeat, she said:  'I'll have to get an operation and they don't know yet whether I'll lose all or part of my hand.  This type of cancer is so aggressive and recurs in the same spot so I don't care how much of my hand they take.

'I just want the cancer gone so I can see my two children grow up.'

Through it all Carol did receive some good news earlier this week about her Daniel.

'He went to the specialist who is pretty sure Daniel has a form of Wolfram syndrome, which means he won't go completely blind.

'At present, Dan is legally blind in one eye and almost the same in the other but this news means he'll have some form of vision, however slight -  so I'm delighted that he'll never be left completely in the dark'

As she prepares for her operation, she is urging everyone to get their lumps and bumps checked, especially as July is the Sarcoma Awareness Month worldwide.

'I was super lucky that I was diagnosed so early.  Many people go unchecked for years and others are misdiagnosed with cysts.'

Further information on sarcoma can be found at www.facebook.com/sarcomaactionsupportgroup/