A teacher from Bristol has spoken of how her second battle with cancer in just three years has left her fearing becoming homeless – and how her daughters have had to set up a fundraising website to appeal for donations to support her.
Sheila Riley is recovering from a brain tumour three years ago and has now been plunged into a second fight – this time with a debilitating form of leukaemia. With hospital visits up to five times a week, she can no longer work, but the benefits she receives don’t cover her rent and bills.
So her daughters Tia, 25, and Leoni, 22, have set up a page on the website GoFundMe, to appeal to friends and strangers to help out their mum, and have so far raised more than £1,600 from almost 60 individual donations, many from strangers.
Sheila, from Ashley Down in Bristol, has worked for years as a teacher in primary schools across the city, including in Knowle and Southmead, and had been teaching at a school in Easton for six years when, in 2021, she was first diagnosed with a tumour in her sinuses back in 2021 that had spread to behind her eyes and to her brain.
Doctors treated that tumour and it is under control and she was able to return to work having been off for more than a year. Then, last summer, cancer struck for a second time. She was diagnosed with APL – acute promyelocytic leukemia – and spent a month in hospital, for intensive treatment that involved blood and platelet transfusions and drug therapy.
She is now an outpatient and has to go to hospital between three and five times a week for hours at a time for more treatment, so can no longer work and won’t be able to for months to come.
As many who are hit by serious illness know, the financial situation of not working is a big concern. “One of my biggest anxieties is that I haven’t got the money to literally pay the rent and the bills, that I’ll lose my home. The Government doesn’t pay enough benefits to cover it all, and it’s really worrying,” Sheila told Bristol Live.
“I’m going to hospital up to five days a week at the moment, so I can’t work and I don’t really want to be moving house or ending up with the stress of not having anywhere to live. I am optimistic about the treatment, it’s got a good success rate, and I’m determined as I have been through the tumour and now this leukemia, to fight it with a positive outlook, but I’ve had to step away from my job now. This time around, it is a struggle,” she added.
Daughter Tia, 25, said she was helped before when she was first battling the tumour. “Many people were very generous before whilst mum was fighting her brain tumour and nobody, least of all mum, expected to be fighting another cancer so soon,” she said. “APL is a type of blood cancer that involves intense treatments including several blood and platelets transfusions and drug therapy. She is now an out patient that goes to hospital about 3-5 times a week for several hours at a time so she can’t work. She will need to do this for several more months.
“Having fought very hard with her brain cancer three years ago – which now stands as a stable disease – mum returned to full time teaching for the last couple of years at her primary school. Now not being able to work has been quite a blow to herself and family,” she added.
“Unfortunately, the treatment schedule means that mum cannot work and this fundraiser is to raise much needed funds for essentials for her and family. If people can please donate to make this very difficult time for mum and family more bearable, that would be amazing. That means she can focus on her treatment,” she added.
Sheila told Bristol Live that, having been someone who always worked and supported her family and friends, she was a bit embarrassed that she was now in this position. “This whole thing is quite overwhelming, to be vulnerable like this – going from working and contributing to this now, it’s really hard.
“What I get from the Government isn’t enough, and I don’t want my daughters to have to do this at all, but it is the situation right now,” she added. “The next six months are going to be key and hopefully I’ll push through this like I did before.
“I’ve got some amazing, lovely friends and family. The first time I was ill, they set up a WhatsApp group to support me and co-ordinate things like lifts to hospital and so on. I am optimistic about the treatment and just want to get back to work as soon as possible,” she added. To find out more about the appeal for Sheila, visit the GoFundMe page here.