Elaine Car

Elaine was born in Jarrow in November 1966 and when she was three she moved with her parents to Arnold Street in Boldon Colliery.

Elaine pictured with her mother, Kathleen, in their garden in Lyndon Grove

This is her mother's story of Elaine.

When she was nine we moved to Cardiff and when we came back to the North -East to live, Elaine stayed there. She worked for a Funeral Home as a co-ordinator for the Directors. After a while a position came up to be a trainee embalmer whilst the current one was on maternity leave. When the lady in question didn't go back to work Elaine applied and was accepted for the postion. She had to sit exams and in 2002 she won the George Woods award for the top student in the country. She also came home to the North East and lived in Chester-le-Street for a while working in the Co-op Funeral Service before taking up a post in South Shields, again with the Co-op. She then started to work for Peter Johnstom Funeral Service and it was there in 2004 that she had what the doctors thought was a stroke, but as she was so young they decided to investigate and she had an MRI scan, when it was discovered she had a brain tumour, she moved nearer to us, where it was easier for us to help.

In June 2007 she took poorly and went into hospital and we discovered that she had a cyst on her brain, they removed this and we found out that the tumour had gone from a grade two to a four and I am afraid that it doesn't go any higher. They gave Elaine one year to live.

She had five weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, then hothing for a month, then five day chemo every month for six months. This has continued and in January this year (2009) she has completed 16 months of tratment and the tumor is shrinking. Very good news but her mother has another problem as her father Wilf is also battling against cancer and has had to have a kidney removed.

During all of this horrendous time Elaine has kept her sense of humour an is helping the family to understand what is happening to her. She has a "to do" list and one of the things on it is a balloon flight. She knows how terrified of hights I am and I really think this is the punishment for not shaving my head when she lost all of her lovely hair. We then decided to do it for a cancer charity and what better than to do it for the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust. As Elaine says it won't help her, but it will help others. If you would like to donate to the charity please contact Maria Birchall the Fundraising Manager Tel: 0845 130 9733 or donate on line at:- www.braintumourtrust.co.uk/donate.htm