Nursing student campaigns to save her mother's life.

Universal College of Learning (UCOL), Palmerston North, third-year nursing student Rebecca Brunton is doing her best to stop her family history repeating itself. When her grandmother was 45, she died of breast cancer, having spent the fast six months of her rife being nursed by her trainee community nurse daughter Lynette. Now Lynette herself has developed an aggressive form of breast cancer and Rebecca has put a hold on her own nursing studies to help raise funds to finance the drugs that may save her mother's life.

Until her mastectomy in Jury this year, Lynette had been working as an enrolled nurse at Olive Tree Apartments and rest-home. She had had mammograms regularly every year and had felt confident she had avoiding contracting the disease that had killed her mother.

However, in July this year, she noticed that one of her breasts seemed larger than the other and her nipple was starting to invert. A biopsy showed she had grade 3 breast cancer, the fastest-growing and most aggressive sort. Radical surgery followed four days later, including the removal of 42 lymph nodes. Twenty-nine of these turned out to be cancerous. The surgeon advised that only aggressive treatment would give Lynette a chance of surviving.

As well as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, he suggested a course of Taxotere and Herceptin, drugs which are not publicly funded at this stage, These, he said, would give her the best chance of stopping the cancer spreading. Now her daughter Rebecca is doing her best to raise the nearly $90,000 needed to fund the two drugs, the first of which Lynette was due to begin earlier this month.

"At first I wasn't sure whether to put a how on my nursing studies but I soon realised my mother needed my full-time support, especially if we were to find the money for these drugs," said Rebecca. "We are not a wealthy family. Mum has been a single mother most of her life and has a[ready sacrificed much to bring up me and my brother. Taking this time out of my nursing studies is the [east I can do in return."

Rebecca says she has realty enjoyed her studies at UCOL, particularly the fast year. She has completed all her assignments and passed them, and is now due to do her final six-week placement in January. She hopes to graduate a few months later. But above all, she wants to raise the money to finance those much needed drugs, especially the Herceptin, which her mother would need to begin taking next March and continue taking for a year.

A number of community groups and businesses in Palmerston North have contributed to an appear fund set up to support Lynette, including the staff at Olive Tree Apartments, friends running sausage sizzles, fund-raising exercise classes at Massey University and local businesses during a street appeal at the end of November. The sight of Lynette being wheeled about the city on a hospital bed, pushed by her colleagues from Olive Tree Apartments, captured the imaginations and hearts of many that day. Donations can be made to the Lynette Brunton Appear Fund at any ANZ bank. The account number is 0107 450200752 00.