A CARING sister has launched a fundraiser to help her sibling with cancer travel the world.
In May of this year, Emma Elford, 26, was diagnosed with breast cancer, which left her and her family devastated.
A couple of months later, Emma and her family received more bad news after she was admitted to hospital with chest pains and breathing problems.
The cancer had spread to her bones in her sternum and lumbar spine and Emma was given the diagnosis of stage four metastatic breast cancer. Metastatic breast cancer is breast cancer that has spread to another part of the body.
Emma, of Darton, doesn’t know how long she has left to live, but her younger sister Laura Elford, 24, has set up a GoFundMe to help her sister travel across the world.
Laura, of Honeywell, said: “Emma is just trying to keep positive about everything and has a very positive mindset and outlook. She’s been amazing really but she doesn’t want to know about how long she has left.
“There are so many thing she wants to do in her life so we want to try and give her everything we can.
“I set up the GoFundMe page to help her fulfil the bucket list to see some places in the world.
“If it was me I would want to go everywhere, but Emma wants to go to specific places.”
Laura is aiming to raise £10,000 to help her sister travel to New Zealand, Australia, Dubai and Singapore.
“Emma wants to go to New Zealand as we have family there. She wants to go to the Gold Coast, in Australia as it was one of our grandparents’ favourite experiences. She has always wanted to go to Dubai and she wants to visit Singapore as family have stopped there during their connecting flight and stayed over for a couple of nights and brought lots of photos which then made Emma want to visit,” said Laura.
However, as well as helping to pay travel costs, the money may also be used to pay for alternative medical treatment for Emma, as there are only two treatments available on the NHS, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Any extra that is raised will go to the charity Breast Cancer Care.
“Emma is really into raising funds for Breast Cancer Care. She raised about £480 for them recently by doing a bake sale at her workplace so she’s asked for money to go towards that charity too.
“It’s been a bumpy ride, I think Emma has really grabbed the bull by the horns. She’s just so optimistic there will be advances in medicine and when it’s you living with it you can have that mindset. She just wants a normal life.
“We just want her to have something to look forward to.”
To donate to the GoFundMe page to help Emma click here.
