Aylesbury Vale mum crowdfunding after life-changing cancer diagnosis

A single mum from Buckingham who has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer is crowdfunding to provide for her family when the treatment she requires makes her unable to work.

On April 4 this year, 34-year-old Becki Lucas’s life changed when she was was diagnosed with blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN), a rare cancer of the white blood cells.

Becki, who runs an online lingerie business, first noticed a mark on her chest in November, but thought no more of it.

But then three more marks appeared on her back in January, followed by more and more in February, but blood tests revealed nothing and her doctors had no answers.

The marks on her skin made Becki suspect she had lymphoma

So after six weeks, suspecting skin lymphoma, Becki went privately to see a consultant haemotologist.

"I knew something was wrong, and was just getting nowhere,” she said;

The following week, she had a biopsy, a CT scan and multiple blood tests

"Four weeks later, my biopsy results came in. It wasn’t skin lymphoma, it was BPDCN,” said Becky, who has two young children aged five and seven.

“My world changed. It’s changed my life, and not in a good way.

"It’s extremely rare, there’s only about 10 cases a year in the UK. The dermatologists had never seen it, never even heard of it.”

The average survival time without treatment for this aggressive cancer is just seven to 12 months, but Becki is hoping to be treated with a new drug, Tagraxofusp, which is made in America.

"We have to get permission from the US drug company to supply me the drug, and at the moment I’m still in a pre-approval stage,” she said.

She will also require a stem cell transplant from a donor match.

"Basically it means they will wipe out my immune system and give me someone else’s. So I’ll start again from scratch,” she explained.

She faces about six weeks in hospital and then a very long recovery period afterwards.

“I’m looking at 12 to 18 months on the journey before I’m healthy – that’s if everything goes to plan,” she said.

“The hospital warned me that I’m going to be really ill,.

"They were like, you need to get as much sorted before you start treatment because you’re going to be ill.

"It’s terrifying how ill they warned me I could be.”

Becki’s mother and sister are planning to provide as much care as possible for Becki and her children.

But she will be unable to work and has been warned that her claim for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will take seven months to process.

So, encouraged by friends, she decided to set up a GoFundMe page to help provide for her family.

"It’s insane,” she said. “I feel like I have woken up in a parallel universe.

“Either you get depressed and wallow in it, or you get positive and get determined and do what you can."

To visit Becki’s crowdfunding page click here or read her blog here.