Kenilworth woman wore wedding dress on her anniversary and has been making most of time at home with her family as she continues cancer battle through Covid-19 pandemic

Sophie Umhofer, who lives in Whitemoor Road with her children Maisie and Freddie and husband Michael, has been battling the cancer since 2018.

Michael launched a campaign that year to raise enough money to pay for Sophie to have immunotherapy treatments to prolong her life and give their children, lasting memories of her.In early 2019 Sophie underwent chemotherapy but this made her very ill and her condition was worsening.

Later that year she started on immunotherapy called Nivolumab and Ipilimumab at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

After her fourth cycle of the theraphy at the end of May, she felt very ill and was sent to A&E after her blood tesst showed she was having an adrenal crisis.

She had developed Addison’s Disease which means her adrenal glands no longer produce important hormones, mainly cortisol.

She now has to take steroids throughout the day to stay alive.

But this counterbalances the side effects she suffers from the immunotherapy - mainly fatigue and nausea - and her appetite has returned after the chemoterapy destroyed it.

Sophie said: "Since then, I haven’t had many issues at all compared to being on chemo, I really can’t believe how lucky I have been.

"I almost live a normal life now.

"I do still suffer from bad fatigue days which aren’t predictable, but for the most part, I can still get up and look after my kids and play with them, which has been the greatest gift of all.

"I couldn’t do that on chemo and I felt like a terrible mother.

"The kids even forget that I have cancer sometimes now as I’m not obviously ill to them.

"My scans have shown that I am currently stable, but the tumours have shrunk since starting the immunotherapy, which is fantastic."

Sophie is now being treated from Warwick Hospital and her drugs dosage is now less regular.

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that Sophie has had to shield at home for most of the year but she said she has been making the most of the time at home with her family.

During lockdown Sophie and Mike celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary.

She said: "The plan was always to take the honeymoon we never got to have when we married, but we couldn't do that.

"So we dressed up in our wedding stuff and the kids celebrated with us in the garden."

Sophie is considering her next options for her treatment as she will son have to stop taking the immunotherapy drugs.

She still has stubborn tumours in her liver but surgery is a possibility for her.

She said: "I would just like to thank everyone who donated, or has helped us as a family these past couple of years, we really are so grateful.

"We couldn’t have survived without your help! I was overwhelmed with the response, seeing people who didn’t even know me go out of their way for us, but was just so poorly at the time to respond so thank you.

"If people would like to read my full story, Bowel Cancer UK have recently used it as part of their Never Too Young campaign, supporting and raising awareness of bowel cancer in younger people - something which I am passionate about too.

"I am also on instagram as Unbowelievable and post regularly what I am up to."