Mum Amanda Clark has faced an uphill battle since first being diagnosed with cancer in 2013
Amanda Clark is fundraising for chemosaturation treatment which can cost £40,000 per procedure.(Image: Amanda Clark)
A Bottesford woman who has battled cancer for years is reluctantly appealing to others to help fundraise a treatment which could extend her life. Amanda Clark, 62, was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer 13 years ago which she was treated for but led her to lose most of the sight in one eye.
The probation service worker, who has a son in his 30s, undergoes yearly scans as her condition – ocular melanoma – has a 50/50 chance of spreading. Following an MRI in 2021 she was told the devastating news that she had lesions on her liver, which subsequently went unchanged until 2024 when tests showed they had started to grow.
Having undergone complex surgery in Southampton, Amanda has battled with new tumours and through immunotherapy which made her very ill. Last year she was told a drugs trial was her only hope.
“There are that many people and not enough places, basically. Every one they’ve put me forward for, there have been no places or they’ve stopped the trial,” explained Amanda.
“I’m just fighting against it all the time, there’s just nothing coming up for me.”
Amanda Clark with her son, Clyde Longcake.(Image: Amanda Clark)
The only other route available to Amanda is a treatment called chemosaturation, which is not yet available on the NHS and costs £40,000 per procedure – with at least three required. The non-surgical process has been shown to prolong life in patients with Amanda’s cancer – which is why she is now, against her nature, fundraising via a Gofundme page which has already attracted pledges of more than £4,000.
Chemosaturation uses x-ray guidance to deliver chemotherapy directly to the liver, whilst the blood supply to the liver is sealed off to prevent the spread of the drug to the rest of the body. Once the liver has been saturated the blood is filtered to minimise the associated side effects that come with convention chemotherapy.
The enormous cost of the chemosaturation is just one of the heavy burdens carried by Amanda who admits to being terrified about the “ticking timebomb” of her cancer. She is desperate to be around for her son – who lost his father, Amanda’s ex-partner in 2024 – and her partner.
Amanda hopes to have raised the funds by the end of the year, which will allow her to undergo treatment, again in Southampton where there is a specialist hospital for ocular melanoma.
She said: “At the moment I’m stable, my last scan about six weeks ago showed the biggest tumour was about 2.5cm and had grown but the others had stayed stable and I’ve got no spread elsewhere – touch wood. So I am in prime position to have this treatment because it would be beneficial for me.”