Kelly Heather.Photo:Kelly Heather / SWNS (2)

Mum-of-four, Kelly Heather, wants further testing to be available at any stage of a cancer diagnosis. A mum was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer while 35 weeks pregnant with her fourth child - after repeatedly being told that her cancer had not spread.

Kelly Heather / SWNS (2)

A mom of four is struggling with stage fourmelanoma, which spread to her brain while she was pregnant — and she alleges it could have been avoided if her doctors had listened to her.

Kelly Heather, 38, first visited her doctor in 2017 when she noticed a dark line on her middle fingernail. However, a series of tests said it was nothing to worry about. But the line got darker — and in three months, she was told she hadmelanoma, a serious form of skin cancer, underneath her nail.

That led to the first of several surgeries, she told South West News Service, viaThe Daily Mail.First, Heather had her nail bed removed; Six months later, a wart-like growth appeared at the tip of her finger, prompting her doctor to advise her to have her finger amputated.

Kelly Heather’s melanoma began as a line on her nail.Kelly Heather / SWNS

Kelly was first diagnosed with cancer after noticing a line on her fingernail.

Kelly Heather / SWNS

“I said, ‘Whatever you need just take it,’ ” the mom, who hails from the English town of Kent, said. “I’d rather that than it spread anywhere else.”

After the surgery, she told the outlet, she asked for more tests, but doctors refused — a decision that she says allowed the cancer to spread.

Kelly Heather had surgery to remove 20 lymph nodes.Kelly Heather / SWNS

Kelly after surgery to remove 20 lymph nodes

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At this point, she says the melanoma was metastatic, prompting surgery to remove 20 lymph nodes.

But in December, while she was35 weeks pregnantwith her fourth child, Te-Jay, Heather began losing muscle control.

Heather Kelly with son Te-Jay.Kelly Heather / SWNS

Kelly with baby Te-Jay

The cause of the seizure was abrain tumor— with the same genetic profiling as her melanoma, she says.

Heather was able to give birth to Te-Jay on Dec. 9, two weeks later she underwent brain surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. As she explains, doctors couldn’t remove the entire tumor without causing permanent paralysis to her left side — requiring Heather to need radiation on the remaining tumor.

Then, she received the dire news that there was a 25% chance the cancer could have spread to newborn Te-Jay.

Kelly Heather and her baby Te-Jay - who was born a week after she was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma brain cancer

AGoFundMehas been established to support the family, who along with Te-Jay, includes children Preston, 17, Brendan, 15, and Rhea, 7, whom Heather shares with her partner Tom Woodcock.

“She could be wheelchair bound but this is the least of her problems,” the GoFundMe explains, “Just staying alive over the next year is her biggest fight she has been given a 50% chance of the treatment working for her. Should this treatment fail to work in the first year there will be no other treatment available to Kelly.”

“I don’t think I’ve fully accepted that I have terminal cancer,” Heather told SWNS. “I do wonder what would have happened if I got that one scan I begged for. I feel things could have been dealt with differently and I might be in a different position to what I am now.”

source: people.com