Yahoo News Rugby player, 20, to undergo cancer treatment in US after mum told: 'She won't survive night'
A 20-year-old rugby player struck down with cancer is to undergo treatment in the U.S. in a last-ditch bid to save her life. Madi Foster was given less than 18 months to live in February.
She had already survived two years of misdiagnosis, septic shock and multiple organ failure before seemingly being on the road to recovery. But Madi, who plays for Stafford Rugby Club, was then given the devastating news the cancer had returned.
Now the former City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College student, from Marston near Stone, has been told her only chance of survival is to have pioneering surgery in America.
As Madi and her family prepare to fly out next month, her proud mum Nicola Foste : “She’s a ray of sunshine. She smiles all the time, and her whole attitude is that she’s not going to let this make her sad. She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t say ‘Why me?’. She’s always smiling, it’s incredible.”
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The family's nightmare started back in 2021 when a ‘fighting fit’ Madi, then aged 17, began experiencing symptoms including a racing heartbeat and fatigue. Over the following two years she was taken to her GP and A&E multiple times, where she misdiagnosed with kidney infections, heart problems, depression and anxiety.
In May last year, she 'started to go downhill very quickly' according to her mother Nicola Foster. After several hospital visits and GP appointments, Nicola called Madi an ambulance in June. Medics eventually discovered a 15cm tumour had engulfed one of her kidneys.
Nicola said: “She was in a lot of pain, she was sweating buckets, and she couldn’t get up the stairs to go to bed.
“She was sent to Stafford and was told she had an enlarged spleen and was being sent home again. I point-blank refused to take her because I knew there was something — she’s fighting fit, she never complains, and I’m not taking her home.
“They reluctantly admitted her and then they left her lying in a ward for five days and no-one came to see her. Then, a consultant from the Royal Stoke came to do the ward rounds. He looked at her scan and found that she had a 15cm tumour that had completely engulfed her left kidney.
“What made us angry was that the A&E consultant must have seen that, but didn’t tell us; and the reason her spleen was enlarged was that it was wrapped around this tumour.”
Nicola says the consultant, Dr George Varughese, fast-tracked Madi for treatment at the Royal Stoke University Hospital before she was diagnosed with a rare cancer called Adrenocortical Carcinoma. Madi, an aspiring medical student, says Dr Varughese saved her life.
She was then referred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where she underwent surgery in September. Her left kidney was removed, and they found the tumour had grown into the Inferior Vena Cava, a major blood vessel that carries blood into the heart, which had caused Madi’s heart issues.
Madi was given six units of blood during the open-chest operation, which removed the cancer, but postoperative complications arose that saw her abdomen fill with fluid. In November, shortly before a procedure at the Queen Elizabeth to drain the fluid, Madi complained she did not feel well.
By that evening she was in full septic shock and suffered multiple organ failure. Madison's received three electric shocks that night to control her heart rate, and Madi’s family were told she would likely not survive the night.
Mum-of-two Nicola said: “We went in the next morning; she was on a ventilator and opened her eyes and gave us a thumbs up to say everything was okay. They took us in that morning and said the chances of her surviving the day were very slim. Her fingers and toes had necrosed because she was in shock.
“But, she kept defying the odds, and every day she improved a little bit. After two weeks she was moved from intensive care, her kidney started to work, and, though we had been told she wouldn’t be able to walk, she got up with a zimmer frame and started to walk around the room.
“After four weeks she walked out of the front door. It was a wobbly few steps and then she was back in the wheelchair.”
Madi began to recover, becoming stronger and more independent, says Nicola, before a scan in February of this year revealed the cancer had returned. Multiple lesions had appeared in several sites.
Nicola said: “At that point, because it had spread, they said there was nothing they could do, only palliative care. She asked how long she had, because she wants to go into medicine and she wants to know the nitty gritty, the full details, and they said 15 to 18 months with chemotherapy.
“We couldn’t accept it, and we started researching ACC and treatments that are available. That’s why we contacted America. They see more people with ACC, and they take on international patients. They gave us hope when we had none.”
Madi is now booked in for surgery at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland on July 30, with hopes that the surgical removal of the tumours and following chemotherapy will be enough to 'keep it at bay.
Brave Madi told StokeonTrentLive that she's 'always happy', saying: “I think that is because I’ve got such good family and friends around me.”
A fundraising appeal has raised over £28,000 toward Madi's treatment, with music events, bake sales, kilt walks and football matches being held in order to gather donations.
Madi added: “I’d like to be a paediatric surgeon. I had that idea for years and years before this, but, rather than put me off, it has made me want to do it more. I’d probably try to do stuff with cancer now that I’ve had experience with that because I’ll be able to talk to patients better."
Madi thanked Dr Varughese, the consultant who discovered her cancer and has offered her work experience when she is well enough.
She said: “I’m looking forward to just being 20 and getting back to all the stuff I want to do, going on nights out with friends and going on holiday. I’ve had two holidays booked and they’ve both had to be cancelled because I wasn’t very well. I’m looking forward to stuff people take for granted.”
NHS England, University Hospitals of North Midlands and University Hospitals Birmingham were approached for comment.
A spokesperson for University Hospitals Birmingham said: “We wish Madison all the best with her ongoing care and treatment, and we will continue to support Madison and her family in their exploration of further treatment options.”
