Mum diagnosed with 'incurable' cancer vows to fight on to raise her three kids
A Brisbane mum who was told she had aggressive and incurable breast cancer has vowed to fight to raise her children "from kindergarten to wedding days".
Susan Cox, 34, was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma in 2015 and underwent a double mastectomy, leaving her unable to hold her children, aged one and two, for two months.
Surgeons said they got a clear margin around the tumour and six months later Ms Cox and husband Philip discovered they were pregnant with their third child.
But around the five-month mark of her pregnancy, Ms Cox felt "something was wrong" and an ultrasound revealed there was no heartbeat.
"A couple of days later we went to the hospital and there, after a difficult 18-hour labor, Suz delivered our sweet little girl," Philip wrote on the GoFundMe page.
"We were deeply grateful and comforted that we were given the opportunity to hold her and say goodbye."
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Just two months later Ms Cox fell pregnant again with their son Levi, but a few weeks after his birth they were dealt another devastating blow.
"She woke up in pain several times a night and we knew we needed to get the scans done," Philip said.
"The specialist’s office called us back in the next morning (never a good sign) and told us that the breast cancer had come back.
"They told us that Suz, the proud mummy to our new 6-week old baby boy, now has Stage 4 cancer, and that it is invading into her breastbone and is sitting on the outer lining of her lung and heart."
Doctors told Ms Cox the cancer was incurable and that treatments would only give her a little bit more time.
But the mother-of-three is determined to fight the disease and be around for all the important milestones.
On Thursday, Ms Cox will start chemotherapy and the couple are crowdfunding to raise $100,000 for treatment.
"Treatments will be nearly every day for at least 7 weeks, then we take the next step from there," she wrote on Facebook.
