In the summer of 2021, hair stylist and mum-of-one Katie Froggatt thought she was just fighting off a cold. But as weeks passed, she started to find she couldn’t breathe at all.
To her and husband Steven’s horror, a growth had started forming within her nose. It worsened to the point it was ‘coming out of her nose, like a sausage out of her nostril’.
The couple discovered Katie had an aggressive tumour, leading to horrific surgery in a bid to help her survive. But despite surgeons removing Katie’s entire nose, she has been told she does not have long left with her young family, including little girl Myla, at the age of just 39.
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“It was in August of 2021, we had a bit of a cold in the house but after that, Katie started really struggling to breathe through her nose. It stayed stuffy and it got worse and worse,” husband Steven told the Manchester Evening News.
“She was misdiagnosed - the doctors thought it was sinusitis and she was prescribed medications for that. Nothing improved so we went private, Katie’s breathing got worse to the point where she couldn’t really breathe at all.”
A private doctor thought it was polyps, but the problem only continued to grow. “This tumour continued to grow until it was coming out of her nose - it was like a sausage was coming out of her nostril, right over her top lip,” continued Steven,
The couple decided to go to A&E as Katie continued to struggle to breathe. It was thanks to a couple of young nurses at the A&E in Southport that the couple were advised to head to hospital in Aintree for investigations into suspected cancer.
Katie had two operations in as many months at the start of 2022, and talk began of possibly removing her nose in a complex procedure to try and remove the tumour for good. “We didn’t know whether she was going to wake up with a nose or not,” said Steven.
A brutal process of reconstruction on her nose began and doctors took skin from Katie’s wrists, veins from her arm to get blood to the skin around the new nose, and took a bone from her rib to create the new structure.
The surgery left nerve damage in her face, leading to her face sagging for much of the year until her feeling came back. It was then followed by gruelling radiotherapy.
The future was looking brighter by September of 2022, but just a few days after the couple got back from a friend’s wedding in France, where Katie enjoyed her first night out in months as a bridesmaid, they faced a terrible shock.
Katie’s nose started bleeding again and it was discovered that despite all of the invasive surgery, the tumour had returned.
That tumour was removed, but once again, another had grown within days in Katie’s nose. Katie was fast-tracked for surgery, managing to have yet another procedure on December 23 - during the first wave of nursing strikes. NHS staff said that if she had not made it into the operating theatre by January, the tumour would have taken her eye.
After hoping for more nose reconstruction after the first surgery, this time, surgeons had to remove the entirety of Katie’s nose.
“It was very gruesome, they removed her whole nose,” continued Steven. “There was extensive damage, Katie needed a skin graft, all her eye is still a mess.”
Tragically, yet more bad news came as the Southport family rang in the New Year. The cancer had travelled to Katie’s lung and was now at stage four, removing her lung would ruin her quality of life, Steven says they were told by doctors.
He added that the life expectancy for a cancer of this nature is thought to be ‘a year or two’, but when asked by specialists if they wanted to find out how long Katie has left, they decided against it.
Now, the family is pursuing alternative treatments in a desperate attempt to give Katie as long a life expectancy as possible - but these can come at a cost in excess of £1,000 a week, says the dad. They are ‘trying to help themselves’ before the NHS runs out of treatment options for her, says Steven.
The family is frantically raising money as Katie is ‘desperate to see 40’ and be around as long as possible for the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Myla. Katie is having intensive radiotherapy and immunotherapy while awaiting a prosthetic nose.
“Our little girl thinks mum is getting her nose fixed, she’s been a really good little girl,” explained Steven.
“We’re really positive and we always have been. I’d like to plan a better life for us, but I can’t even think about the future right now.
“My eyes water fearing I’m going to lose her and thinking about being a single dad, it’s scary. But then I decided to change my thinking. I can’t help this and I can’t let the anxiety take control.”
Steven says the family are celebrating ‘what time they’ve got now’ after 14 years as a couple: “Anything I can do to support Katie and improve her quality of life for as long as possible I’m going to do.”
The fundraiser for Katie has already raised more than £24,000. If you would like to donate, head to the GoFundMe.
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