A young terminal cancer sufferer given just days to live has offered to refund £3,000 in funeral donations after a miracle all-clear and even APOLOGISED for not dying. Xsara Sanderson was given the devastating news that she had had stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma last July after suffering from symptoms including chest and neck pain and rapid weight loss. After gruelling cycles of chemotherapy, Xsara, then 19, decided to stop treatment in November despite doctors saying she could have as little as a matter of days to live. However, some so-called friends branded her decision to turn her back on chemo 'selfish' and stopped talking to her and still don't. Given the bleak diagnosis, a family friend set up a GoFundMe page to ensure Xsara got the funeral she had planned for with £3,130 being raised in just two months. However during a scan earlier this month doctors were baffled to discover no sign of any tumours and declared former phone specialist Xsara was cancer free. Now Xsara, 20, says she feels she has been given another chance at life and inspired by the NHS care she received plans to re-train as a carer. But not before offering to pay everyone back for the funeral that never was while quipping to donors ‘I hope you’re not mad with me for beating cancer even though mum told you I’d die’.Her mum Stephanie Sanderson said Xsara has gone from planning her own funeral to planning the rest of her life within days, which she called 'the most amazing feeling in the world'.Xsara, from Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, said: “I need to start thinking about my life now, which is really strange.
“I was planning a funeral and now I’m planning the rest of my life.“I shared the news online and felt the need to apologise as quite a bit of money had been raised for a funeral that has no more chance of taking place than anybody else’s.“I wanted to give people the chance to have their money back because it’s not going towards that anymore, but a lot of people have said they want me to do something with it.“I’ve decided to donate quite a bit of it to the Teenage and Young Adult unit at Castle Hill in Hull where I had my treatment, but I’m also doing an intensive driving course to get my licence.“I’m looking at hopefully getting a job soon, I'd really like to be a carer. “Since watching people care for me it’s given me a greater understanding of people’s needs and I just want to be able to help people.”Xsara first realised she should visit her GP after dropping three stone in two months going from a healthy 11th 7lbs on her 5ft 7 frames to 8th 7lbs. This rapid weight loss, coupled with shooting chest pains, neck pain, severe tiredness and her right eyelid starting to droop, made Xsara believe she may have the flu that needed checking out. After having blood tests taken she was called the next day and invited to an appointment at Scunthorpe General Hospital’s haematology department, which she attended with mum Stephanie. Xsara said: “I’d convinced myself I just had the flu and that I needed to get some antibiotics, I wasn’t worrying at that point.“I didn’t Google anything because as soon as you do it tells you-you to have cancer.“I saw the haematology consultant with my mum and they took more blood, but from the results they already had they said it looked either like lymphoma or leukaemia.“My mum cried a lot and I cried a little bit but I just wanted to know out of the two which was the ‘best’ one to have.”Xsara was transferred to Castle Hill Hospital in Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, the next day. A week later after having a biopsy and further tests, it was confirmed she had stage four Hodgkin lymphoma. Xsara said: “I found out a week after I got there, I didn’t register it at all, I just lay there in shock.“Everybody else was crying but I just went blank.”The first PET scan showed tumours in Xsara’s body and specialists suggested a course of chemo to blast the cancerous cells. After two courses of chemo, another scan revealed the smaller tumours had largely disappeared but there was still a big mass and that the current treatment might not be strong enough to get rid of it. Xsara was moved onto a stronger course of chemo but after one ‘violent’ session she decided not to continue with it. Xsara said: “I did the first day of the stronger chemo and was constantly throwing up.“When my family came to visit me the next day I said ‘I can’t do this any more’. It was making me feel so bad and I didn’t think I would make it through.“It was a lot more violent than the first one and honestly, it was killing me. If I’d stayed on it I believe I’d be dead.“I was throwing up all the time, constantly getting infections, I couldn’t stand up, I was passing out and I couldn’t eat or drink.“When I went home for a week after it I was completely knocked out. My family tried to persuade me to do it so I went back to the hospital to try again for the other session but I just couldn’t.“It made me feel so terrible so I had to leave again.”Doctors told Xsara that alternative treatment would be more invasive and would either involve stem cell transplants or more aggressive chemo. It was then, at the end of November 2018, that Xsara decided to stop treatment. Xsara said: “The decision for me was an easy one but when I thought about other people, that’s what made it difficult.“People told me I was selfish. I kind of understood and I did feel I was being selfish and had to explain I honestly had nothing left in me to do it anymore.“All I could imagine was my mum waking up one day and finding me and how that would make her feel or her having to tell my partner that he’s no longer got somebody.“Or her having to tell my brother or my sisters it was really upsetting to think about.“It honestly made me want to be strong enough to continue to do the chemo. I told her all the time I would do it if I could.“My mum understood but quite a few friends stopped talking to me and still don’t talk to me now.”Xsara said given how bleak her prognosis was at the time of her decision to stop treating the family focused on Christmas believing it to be their last as a family.Xsara said: “The doctors said they couldn’t determine how long I would have it could be days, weeks or months but that it wouldn’t be years.“We were all hoping that I was going to be ok at Christmas. I didn't want to ruin it for them, or future Christmases, if anything happened.“Christmas was very poignant, I didn’t know if it would be my last one with the family.“It was lovely. There was a lady I really wanted to meet who I’d spoken to on Facebook called Lisa so she came and she had Christmas with us and that was amazing.”
However, their festive joy was short lived when Xsara fell ill with a chest infection on Boxing Day and went to Scunthorpe General Hospital’s A&E department. There they ran tests and Xsara was told that she needed to be put on numerous drips - something she refused. Xsara said: “At this point, the thought of something being entered into my body was making me feel sick because of how awful the chemo was before.“I asked if I could have it in tablet form because I wanted to go home and was told even if I did take the tablets I would have days to live.”“I said to him ‘you don’t know me, I’ll be fine’. The antibiotics wiped it out within a week and a half and I obviously didn’t die.”A family friend set up the GoFundMe page in January to fund the cost of Xsara’s funeral in a bid to ease the financial strain on Stephanie the total hit £3,130. Xsara said: “I didn’t want my mum to worry about money for a funeral when she was already worried about me being dead.“In some ways getting to plan my own funeral was nice I was getting things I would have wanted.“But at the same time, no-one wants to plan their own funeral.“I wanted a horse and carriage because I wanted to be a princess, I’d picked songs including Close To You by The Carpenters, Christina Perri’s A Thousand Years and Your Song by Elton John.“I decided on no flowers apart from on top of the coffin. The coffin wasn’t a massive interest for me as it was going to get burnt anyway during the cremation so I wasn’t that bothered.”The GoFundMe page called ‘Xsara’s perfect send-off…’ reads: “6 months ago the beautiful Xsara-jade has diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma.“After a difficult fight, Xsara made the brave decision to stop her treatment. She is now living on borrowed time.“As her family, we are trying to help her make amazing memories, but know that financially we cannot afford to give her the funeral she has planned for herself.“This is causing us all such heartbreak, as she certainly deserves the best.“So, we are reaching out for help. This perfectly beautiful 20-year-old deserves a beautiful send-off.“Please, can you help us in making her final wishes come true?”After being told she had just days to live, Xsara spoke to her doctor and requested another PET scan - believing cancer had gone because she ‘couldn’t feel it anymore’.Xsara said: “I spoke to my doctor in January and asked for another PET scan.“He asked why and I just said ‘I think that it’s gone, I can’t feel it anymore so I know it’s not in my body.”Xsara had the scan on March 18th and waited for the results to come back on Monday [March 25th]. Xsara said: “The whole time I was waiting on the results I was adamant it had gone. A lot of people just thought I was delusional.“I had one incident of shooting chest pains that I’d had before the diagnosis and was worried that maybe I’d just been hoping it had gone and that’s why I couldn't feel it.
“When we went to get the results my nurse was there and she already had a massive smile on her face so I could tell it was good news.“The doctor said it had all gone and that there was no sign of any cancer there at all.“My mum cried while I hugged him and then joked around I use jokes to deflect how I’m feeling.“My doctor is absolutely dumbfounded. He has no idea how it’s gone as the amount of chemo I had wasn’t enough to get rid of it.”Thrilled Xsara said she was at a loss to how it had disappeared, describing it as ‘absolutely amazing news’.Xsara said: “I’ve no idea what’s caused cancer to disappear. A lot of people have told me I’ve willed it away people say if you think positively, positive things will happen, I don’t know.“I think to have a positive mindset, and of course, the chemo has helped.”Elated Xsara shared the happy news with friends and family online, jokingly apologising for not dying and offering refunds on funeral donations. Her post read: “So I have some absolutely amazing news. I’ve been telling people for months now, including doctors telling me I’ll die that I will live.“When I stopped treatment I was told that my cancer would continue growing and quickly as once it becomes aggressive it stays that way.“I was told just after Christmas that I had days to live. Now I’m not saying that I’m a psychic or a genius, but I was right.“Last week I had my final pet scan to see how much cancer was left and to go over further options."Today I got the results that my cancer has actually gone. I stopped my treatment, and I still beat cancer because I’m clearly a hench f*ck.“Now for anyone that has donated to my funeral fund, if you would like your money back could you send me an inbox, please.“It would take 30 days to receive it from the gofundme, but then I would be able to send it back to you.“The rest of the money (I know some people don’t want it back already) will be going to the Teenage and Young Adult unit at Castle Hill in Hull, where I had my treatment.“I love you all and I hope you’re not mad with me for beating cancer even though my mum told you I’d die.”Xsara said: “The news that I’m all-clear has changed me as a person so much.“I used to be so angry with life you think I’d be angrier about getting cancer but it made me a nicer person throughout most of it.“I became more thoughtful and I was just so grateful for everything I did have rather than focusing on what I didn’t.“The cancer diagnosis was a wake-up call and the all-clear was a clean slate. I’m now seeing friends, planning to move in with my boyfriend Joshua [Carnaby] and thinking about starting the gym as I can’t walk very far at the moment.“I’m going to plan holidays and do everything I ever wanted to do and thought I would never get the chance to I have a proper zest for life.”Xsara’s mum, phone specialist Stephanie, said her daughter’s all-clear was a ‘miracle’.Stephanie, 39, said: “Finding out she had cancer was just devastating especially finding out it was such an advanced stage as well.“I didn't even dare hope that she would ever be well again.“Seeing her go through the second lot of chemo was awful as she had some horrendous side effects.“I was absolutely devastated when she said she was stopping chemo. I thought she’d given up. I thought ‘this is it, we just sit and wait for her to die’.After the good news this week it’s hard to remember how heartbreaking it was, it’s like a miracle.“Whatever bits of chemo she did have clearly helped, the human spirit she showed was amazing.“It was hard to see her name on a fundraiser for her funeral. To think you're going to outlive your kid is horrendous.“When the doctor said it was good news and that she was all clear I was just a mess.“She’s gone from planning her own funeral to planning the rest of her life within days, it’s the most amazing feeling in the world.”