A charity football match took place yesterday to help an estate agent diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer at 28.
Celebrities including model and TV personality Christine McGuinness, The Only Way is Essex’s Dan Osborne and former EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing star Jake Wood.
The football match took place at Holm Park, the home ground of Sheppey United, with money raised going towards the ‘Help Save Leonie Botten’ fund which is fundraising to get the 28-year-old urgent treatment in the USA.
Botten, from Wainscott near Strood, was referred to Medway Hospital after discovering a growth on her breast in May 2022. By December it had grown and she was told she had stage-4 triple-negative breast cancer.
A GoFundMe page has been set up in her name which, at the time of writing, sits at more than £98,900.
Expecting a year of treatment and tests, Botten remains optimistic about her future.
She told KentOnline: “I booked a doctor’s appointment in January 2023 and they said they were concerned about it.
“I went back in for an ultrasound and they didn’t like what they saw.
“The lady that did it was the same one who first looked at it and she said it had got bigger.
“They did a biopsy and then sent me for a mammogram. A couple of weeks later I got the confirmation that it was cancer.”
The news was broken to her by a letter which was sent before her in-person consultation.
She said: “My mum read it and understood what it meant so it’s my mum who broke the news to me.
“It was traumatizing for both of us. They told us it was curable and it was scary, but I just thought okay I’m going to have a bit of a rubbish year with all the treatment.
“But then after the scans they realized it had spread and was incurable.
“Looking back, I should have asked more questions and probably got a second opinion, but when you’re told by a professional you just think everything’s fine.
“I’m very angry about it. I’m laughing but I’m very angry because it could have all been prevented.
“If they noticed it in June 2022 when it was a small lump it wouldn’t have got to my organs.
“It would have just been a case of a lumpectomy or chemo.
“But once it spread they say there’s not much they can do.”
Leonie is on her third round of chemotherapy and has been off work since getting the cancer diagnosis but, if and when the scans come back with positive results, she has been told she is welcome back anytime.
