When Sharon Ball started getting headaches while she was on maternity leave after giving birth to her daughter, she thought she had an ear infection.
But the mother-of-three has since been told she has a rare brain cancer – which fewer than 200 people worldwide have been diagnosed with.
The 38-year-old, who began having painful headaches during maternity leave late last year, has in recent weeks been diagnosed with an aggressive stage four osteosarcoma in her skull.
After an operation and two rounds of chemotherapy, primary school teacher Sharon was forced to abandon a second planned surgery and turned to international options for her care.
She has now raised more than €750,000 through a GoFundMe page to fund her care at a leading US cancer centre – but still does not know how much her total bill will be.
Sharon’s cause was shared on social media by Irish celebrities including Love Island star Maura Higgins, presenter Vogue Williams and comedian Joanne McNally as donations poured in from across the world.
Family friend Gearóid Rennicks told the Daily Mail the primary school teacher from Co. Meath, Ireland, began having painful headaches in October, three months after her daughter Sophie was born.
She thought they were the result of ear infections but after they became more frequent she sought medical help and was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, in January.
Sharon Ball, pictured with her husband Dermot and children Jack, Louis and Sophie, was diagnosed with a rare osteosarcoma in January
After treatment in Ireland was unable to remove her tumour, Sharon – pictured with husband Dermot – planned to fly to New York for an operation at a leading cancer centre
Sharon’s tumour is on her skull, which was operated on weeks after her diagnosis at Dublin’s Neurology Centre of Excellence in Beaumont Hospital to try to remove some of the growth.
But in February, after two rounds of chemotherapy, doctors found the tumour was not responding to treatment and had grown back to pre-operation size.
Throughout her illness Sharon has had bad headaches, particularly at night and in the morning with ‘constant’ pain in between, Mr Rennicks said.
A new operation was set for March 18 to try to fully remove the tumour but on the eve of the procedure it was called off, with doctors in Dublin judging the cancer inoperable.
Mr Rennicks said: ‘It was shocking but in fairness, credit to Sharon, she’s very proactive. Rather than feeling sorry for herself, she went straight into solution mode and that’s what brought us then to contact hospitals around the world.’
Sharon’s family and friends went on a hunt for solutions and found hope in New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Experts there said they were optimistic they could remove Sharon’s tumour in its entirety, planning to follow up the surgery with radon therapy – a low-dose radiation – to kill any remaining cancer cells.
But to travel to the US and receive treatment, Sharon was required to pay some fees for her travel and treatment up front and still does not know what the full bill will be.
‘We have to pay for everything, for every scan, every blood test, every operation. You have to pay for porters, you have to pay for the nurses, doctors, everything,’ Mr Rennicks said.
In the rural village of Bohermeen, where Sharon and her family live, he said the population was just a few hundred and ‘it wouldn’t be in any way possible to raise that kind of money’, leading them to turn to online fundraising.
Meanwhile Mr Rennicks said the whole town had taken on the challenge of raising funds to secure Sharon’s treatment.
‘I think it’s a reflection of what everyone thinks of Sharon,’ he said.
‘She’s an absolute lady. She’s a young mum-of-three, a lot of people can relate to that as well.
‘She just wants to see her nine-month-old daughter Sophie take her first step, say her first word. She just wants to see her kids grow up and see all the things that we all hope to see our kids do and that we would probably take for granted slightly, but she’s just in a situation where that could be taken away from her.’
Sharon married her teenage sweetheart Dermot, a plumber, nine years ago and alongside Sophie has two boys: Jack, six, and four-year-old Louis.
Mr Rennicks said the couple’s main priority was their children, who have been ‘getting on with life’, helped by their friends and family.
The 38-year-old primary school teacher had a second planned operation earlier this month cancelled the night before after doctors determined her tumour was inoperable
Through their own research, Sharon’s family and friends found hope at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the US, where doctors are hopeful they can remove her tumour
A 10-strong ‘Hope for Sharon’ committee was set up to lead fundraising efforts and is encouraging those who can to continue donating.
Mr Rennicks said: ‘The reality is it’s very different to the NHS or the HSE [Ireland’s health service], where we still don’t know what the final number is going to be, so we’re still really encouraging people to share, contribute, engage with the page – it would be fantastic.
‘There’s been a lot of downs, be it the chemo not reacting, the operations not maybe going as well as they would have liked, so we’re just trying to provide Sharon with hope that they can go and hopefully get the best treatments in the world and get the best outcomes.’
Asked about the community’s reaction to the vast number of donations, he said ‘people just can’t get over it’.
‘It’s overwhelming. There’s been a lot of tears cried of happiness and gratefulness to people that have taken the time to contribute to Sharon’s cause.’
He said it was ‘surreal’ to think people were taking the time to donate given the rising cost of living.
‘Look, the prices of petrol and diesel are going up, it’s harder and harder to run a house but yet people are still taking the time and going to that effort.
‘It’s really, really powerful stuff.’
Sharon flew out to New York with Dermot on Monday morning for consultations, with an operation hoped for next week.
