{"id":473860,"date":"2026-06-12T14:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T14:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/473860\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T14:40:17","slug":"manawatu-mum-whitney-gilbertson-fights-for-more-time-in-terminal-cancer-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/473860\/","title":{"rendered":"Manawat\u016b mum Whitney Gilbertson fights for more time in terminal cancer battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last October, Gilbertson was told the cancer had spread to her liver and lungs. She is undergoing further chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

\"WhitneyWhitney Gilbertson ran 5km with her husband Ben, 1km for each round of radiation.<\/p>\n

Her eldest daughter Gaia, 13, started making lunches for herself and her younger sister Saoirse, 8, while husband Ben Gilbertson became \u201cthe rock of all of it\u201d, helping bathe, dress and care for Whitney during the toughest periods of treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a parent, you want to take their pain away, but how can you take the pain away when you\u2019re the one causing it?\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing she was determined to do was run 1km for every round of chemotherapy alongside her girls and a group of supportive friends.<\/p>\n

Eventually, they ran 6km.<\/p>\n

Then she ran another 5km with her husband, 1km for every round of radiation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of them were runners either, but they were like, \u2018If you can do it, we\u2019ll do it too\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WhitneyWhitney Gilbertson was diagnosed with bowel cancer at age 37.<\/p>\n

About two months ago, close friend Hayley McGillivray launched a Givealittle page<\/a> to raise funds for a \u201clast chance at family memories\u201d after Gilbertson\u2019s terminal diagnosis.<\/p>\n

The funds could help pay for an unfunded cancer drug costing about $1500 every three weeks, as well as allow Gilbertson to reduce her work hours and spend more time with her family in what the Givealittle page describes as \u201cthe last of the unknown time she has\u201d.<\/p>\n

One thing Gilbertson hopes to do is travel to Spain to watch Gaia compete in the Taekwan-Do World Cup in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter\u2019s always had really big dreams of representing the country and I want to be there for her, to see her do it while I still can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WhitneyWhitney Gilbertson hopes to travel with her family to Europe later this year.<\/p>\n

Gilbertson said she hopes her treatment will be paused long enough for the family to make the trip, with plans to also spend a week together in Greece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just make small goals to make it to the next step,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake it to August. Then make it to Spain. Then make it to Greece. Then make it back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure I knew my worth until this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, it\u2019s incredibly humbling watching people show up for me and I\u2019m like \u2018do I deserve this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And she has advice for anyone else going through a similar situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be too proud to accept the help because it takes a lot to get through this. I wouldn\u2019t be here without the constant support of family and friends that have wrapped around me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last October, Gilbertson was told the cancer had spread to her liver and lungs. She is undergoing further…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5837,2534,1872,51175,2082,19134,3273,160703,1360,30538,78,4188,13457,10509,130,2721,111,43,139,69,312,4525,30331,2044,16641,56180,102],"class_list":["post-473860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-battle","tag-cancer","tag-face","tag-fights","tag-for","tag-forward","tag-future","tag-gilbertson","tag-having","tag-helping","tag-in","tag-living","tag-look","tag-manawat","tag-more","tag-mum","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-says","tag-something","tag-terminal","tag-time","tag-uncertain","tag-whitney","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}