Woman with two terminal illnesses desperate for help

Friends of a Devon woman with a one-in-a-billion combination of two life-threatening illnesses are trying to raise £70,000 to send her to America and help keep her alive.

Joanne Smith has both pulmonary hypertension and lymphatic cancer - and her situation is now described as critical. She has a four-year-old son, and says she'll do anything to live for him.

For any parent it's hard to hear someone with such a young child upset with the devastation that they won't get to see them grow up. Jo has idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. The NHS isn't able to test for how it struck her down out of nowhere.

But to make matters worse she also has cancer - follicular lymphoma. To treat either illness would kill her. However a medical doctor, Thomas Incledon from Arizona, is using a new approach, and Jo believes he can help.

Jo has the support of her friend Sarah Lacey, who has set up a fundraising campaign to try to raise the money. If they can reach £30,000 of the £70,000 then they can pay for the examinations to begin. The campaign's Facebook page is here.

Jo raised £30,000 last year for treatment in Thailand, but it turned out not to be the right approach. She still has more than half of those funds available to add to this latest fundraiser.

The American clinic has come personally recommended by a friend, so she's confident that this is her salvation - with son Rudey as her motivation.