A former ambulance technician battling a rare cancer is trying to move her wedding forward before she undergoes major surgery.
Sarah Ambler, from Dufftown, was told she had small bowel neuroendocrine cancer in May 2018, just months before she was told she had breast cancer.
After months of gruelling treatment, the 55-year-old’s breast cancer is no longer an imminent threat – but last January, tumours were spotted on her liver.
Miss Ambler first started receiving injections for the tumours last October, but was forced to leave the ambulance service in January due to her worsening condition, and is now desperately awaiting surgery.
It is unavailable through NHS Grampian but staff are doing all it can to arrange her treatment with another Scottish health board.
Now she and partner Ian Pegg, who popped the question in November, are seeking to move their wedding forward from July to next month instead.
Miss Ambler said with the worldwide impact of lockdown due to coronavirus, life for cancer patients has become even more difficult, but she is trying her best to persevere.
She said: “The injections seemed to be working initially and helped an awful lot with my symptoms, but the last two CT scans have shown an abnormally rapid growth of one of the tumours.
“At this time I am almost certain to die if I catch Covid-19, with my worsening prognosis and condition.
“It’s usually a slow-growing cancer, but I’ve got to the stage now that the tumour is so big that it keeps getting caught and bumping on my ribs, and my liver is now starting to function at less than 100%, so the beginnings of liver failure.”
She added that she wanted to share her story to highlight the additional difficulties faced by those with severe illnesses during the lockdown.
“They are pulling out all the stops and doing everything they can to find another hospital in Scotland where surgeons will be available to do this operation for me,” Miss Ambler said.
“We’re now aiming to try and get married in Dundee on June 16, and my oncologist has supported that so we can hopefully be married before the operation.
“We were so looking forward to this year after all of my troubles.
“Me and my husband-to-be were actually meant to be in the Seychelles right now for our honeymoon before the wedding, it was going to be a chance-of-a-lifetime thing.
“But the main thing is, we just want to get married.”
