Hey, hi, I'm Bigan!

That's what my friends call me and below I'll give you my story and why we're here

Firstly, I don't think I'm very different from you. Among the most important things to me is friendship. I like to party with my friends, I like big meals with good food and lots of laughs, concerts, good films and I love my 2 cats.❤️

The major lesson I've learnt over the last couple of years is that it's ok to ask for help.

In October 2022, at the age of 42, during a routine investigation, I was diagnosed with bile duct cancer. This type of cancer is surprisingly rare in young people and there are no comprehensive treatment plans in Romania so life expectancy exceeds the dismal numbers shown by statistics. The estimated life expectancy for me at the time of diagnosis was 6 months maximum.

After all this shocking information, I got in touch with a doctor in Austria who, indeed, confirmed what the doctors in Romania said. But because there has always been a DAR in my life, he assured me that by following the proper treatment, we can extend my life expectancy beyond 6 months. So, as of December 2022, I started cytostatic treatment in Vienna. I was forced to choose this in order to live, despite the financial and physical endeavours I was aware I was committing myself to.

For the first two years I responded well to treatment, I gained weight, the tumours were inactive, the tumour marker tests were within normal parameters, the frequency of going to Vienna for treatment was every 5 weeks. I turned 45 and I was very happy to have lived long enough to celebrate it with all the people dear to me and managed to stay professionally active, even part-time :). It's very important that the treatment and the positive progress has allowed me to be able to work to cover my treatment costs.

I had high hopes for 2025. My doctor was telling me that if we had good results on the CT scan in January, we would increase the distance between chemotherapy sessions to 6 weeks. I was optimistic, I thought that on the one hand my body would be able to take a longer break for recovery and on the other hand it would also be a financial relaxation.

January came with less good news - some of the tumours were active again - they had developed resistance to the substances in the chemotherapy. Which is why we had to change the treatment schedule and the frequency of therapy sessions. I'm now going to 3 weeks and I sincerely hope that I'll respond well to the treatment and in two years' time come back here and help fundraise for other causes.

To be able to continue this treatment, which I know will take at least another year, I need another €50,000 which at the moment I am finding very difficult to raise on my own.

If I could find 5,000 people who would be willing to donate €10 each, I could raise the amount needed to complete my treatment.

For any further information you can contact me at [email protected].

Thank you so much for the time you spend with me singing this mesaj❤️

Have a fabulous day!

Georgiana Bigan