Kelly Turner Foundation planned to help other DSRCT cancer sufferers after her death
Published: 15:00, 09 November 2017
Fundraising will continue in Kelly Turner’s memory to help others suffering her dreadful illness.
The hundreds of thousands of pounds so far raised to try to save her life, will pay for research a chemotherapy for her rare cancer.
This is for desmoplastic small round cell tumours and would be done at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London where she was treated.
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Kelly inspired a massive fundraising campaign in the community to help her but died on Monday after a two-year battle with her illness.
Her father Martin Turner said: “Kelly said she wanted to do fundraising for this after she became well. Because she was hopeful that she would get better.
“We are going to divert the money to that and we hope to replace the Kelly Turner Fundraising appeal with the Kelly Turner Foundation and apply for it to become a registered charity.
"It was Kelly's wish that others would not suffer what she went through.
“The problem is there is no special chemotherapy for this condition.
“We want to help children and young people worldwide and try to stop their pain and anguish.”
Kelly had to go through 28 rounds of chemotherapy but, Mr Turner explained, that it was only a temporary solution as it only slowed down the growth of the tumours.
The only hope left for Kelly had been surgery, radiotherapy and immunotherapy and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
But £1 million was demanded for the full treatment, which sparked the community fundraising for her, starting in June 2016.
The centre had not gone ahead with the surgery, even though the £400,000 needed for that part was raised by last winter.
This was because, it said, the tumours remained too large to operate on them .
Mr Turner said that Kelly only had the chance of a couple more rounds of chemotherapy before the treatment ended up being completely unworkable for her.
He explained that last scan results on October 20 showed an improvement but a few days afterwards the tumours “kicked back” and she became seriously ill.
Kelly was taken to the William Harvey Hosplital in Ashford after she fell gravely ill on the weekend of October 28 and 29.
A few days later she was taken to the Royal Marsden where she had been getting her chemotherapy.
She never recovered.
Mr Turner said: “Kelly’s biggest desire was to live a long life and become a radiographer.”
He explained how he and Kelly’s mum Linda were struggling to come to terms with their loss.
He said; “We are not coping. We have lost not just our daughter but also our best friend. "We know how much she loved us and we loved her so dearly.
“Life will never be the same.
“We are not coping. We have lost not just our daughter but also our best friend. "We know how much she loved us and we loved her so dearly" - Martin Turner
"We are now at home surrounded by her artwork.
"We are incredibly proud of her but also grateful to all those people who tried to help.”
Kelly’s funeral is expected to take place later this month and an exact date and venue will later be confirmed.
Just over £600,000 to help save Kelly had been raised by the time she died.
Mr Turner said that the word that the money being diverted into research is spreading and last Thursday a full £500 was donated.
The Kelly Turner Fundraising Facebook page, on an introductory statement, has said from the beginning that money would be used for this if surgery for Kelly was not possible.
You can also help through justgiving.com/kelly-turner2000.
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