A CRITICAL care nurse whose career goal has always been to help seriously ill patients is now fighting for her own life after being diagnosed with cancer deemed incurable in the UK.

The family of Rachel Carrack, a mother of two small children who turned 35 last Wednesday, are appealing for help after using all their savings so they can send her to a specialist clinic in Germany for treatment which is not available on the NHS.

The trip will be the second that Mrs Carrack, from Baildon, has made.

Two years ago, she discovered she had a cancerous tumour in her pancreas and bile ducts. She had visited her GP repeatedly with back pain after having her second baby, Will, now two. But it wasn’t until a third trip to A&E that a locum doctor advised scans which brought about the devastating news.

Her sister Louise Bennett, who trained as a nurse but who now works in health and social care said: “The biopsy confirmed it was cancerous and inoperable, only palliative treatment could be offered in the UK. It felt like our world was collapsing. I can’t begin to describe the horror and Rachel’s first thoughts were of her two babies, Freya, 4, and Will and her husband, Matthew, who has been hugely supportive.

“One thing about Rachel is she’s a tough Yorkshire bird and she has been determined to fight it.”

Mrs Carrack’s parents used their savings to fund the first trip to an immunotherapy clinic in Germany after searching the internet for alternative treatment.

They found a clinic in Hallwang, in the Black Forest, which offered the treatment - the same one at which former Emmerdale star Leah Bracknell, who played Zoe Tate, is raising money to be treated for her lung cancer.

The treatment, involving immune therapy, Vitamin C infusions plus chemotherapy if needed, worked and Mrs Carrack’s tumour shrank. After a year, the cancer which should have effectively killed her had gone and was basically just scar tissue.

Mrs Carrack, who worked on the colorectal ward at Leeds General Infirmary before moving to the high dependency unit at St James’ Hospital, said: “We were all over the moon and set up ‘Love Hope Trust’, a charitable trust to help raise money for other people needing treatments not funded by the NHS. We have been able to help support six other people.

“Another year on and my cancer is back, it has spread to my lymph nodes and I find I myself in a position where I need to fundraise for myself. My children are one year older. Freya has just started in reception at primary school and Will has moved up a class in nursery. They are such amazing kids and it breaks my heart that they have to go through this again.”

Doctors at Bradford Royal Infirmary also feared ascites in her stomach were malignant but tests have since proved they are not.

Rachel’s parents, an occupational therapist and a nurse, have already spent upwards of £100,000 on treatment. A further £120,000 will be needed to allow their daughter to get the therapy which they hope will save her life and her parents have put a further £60,000 towards it, virtually the last of their savings.

They set up a GoFundMe page on October 10 which has already raised nearly £18,000.

Mrs Bennett added: “Although Rachel is not very well at the moment, as long as she is well enough to fly she can go over. We hope to raise £60,000 through GoFundMe but with our parents’ savings she can go over when the fund has reached £20,000.

“She will be there for about three weeks where intensive treatment using really powerful drugs will be given. Then she will come home and return to the clinic as and when she has to.

“They have been truthful and said they cannot give any guarantees that she will be cured, but they say they are very hopeful they can make a big impact. We are all hopeful because it worked the first time.

“We are thrilled that so many people, people who do not know us, have donated to our fund so quickly. To reach more than £17,500 so soon is amazing. We are feeling very positive.”

To donate go to: https://www.gofundme.com/rachel-carracks-cancer-battle-2tz3j3g

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