A MUM-OF-FOUR with an inoperable brain tumour has described it as “a race against time” in a bid to find the money for potentially life-saving treatment.

Trudie Murphy was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour in July last year and is hoping to travel to the Czech Republic for proton beam therapy.

Family and friends are looking to raise £90,000 for the treatment, with the £50,000 milestone reached on Monday evening.

Trudie has taken to social media, with the account @savetrudie, in a bid to share her story and said: “You feel so close but you are so far.

“It has taken nine months to get to where I am today but I don’t want to wait another nine months or longer to get the rest of the amount.

“There is the uncertainty of the tumour growing and it is a race against time.”

The 37-year-old was given the “devastating” news that the tumour had grown at the end of last month.

READ MORE: Mum appeals for people to help

Doctors told Trudie that the tumour, which has grown two millimetres, was “unpredictable” and they were unable to say if it would continue to grow or what rate it would grow at.

Chemotherapy is not an option for treatment, while radiotherapy could only be used to “buy me a bit more time”.

Instead, the Tranent mum, who worked in the town’s Asda store part-time, is hoping to travel to Prague for treatment.

She said: “Proton beam therapy is like radiotherapy but standard radiotherapy hits a larger area.

“It is fine for tumours that are elsewhere but in your brain; it would then hit the tissue round about the tumour and the tissue is healthy.

“Proton beam therapy is like a pencil point, a pen point, or a dot and it is much more accurate.”

Trudie, who is married to Dave, said that the last nine months had felt like nine years.

She described it as “mental torture” and told the Courier how it was her children – Josh, 18, Naomi, 15, Zak, 12, and nine-year-old Skye – who were inspiring her fight.

The former Musselburgh Grammar School pupil said: “It is hard in the sense that you have not really got any knowledge of what is going to happen.

READ MORE: Tranent thankful for support in fight against brain tumour

“But the biggest fear, above anything, is losing the kids, especially when they are still young and one of them is autistic.

“That is the hardest thing to accept.

“I’m not scared of dying myself but scared of leaving them behind.

“In the build-up to Christmas, I was not really pushing the fundraising and it has only been since it has grown that I have now thought that I need to grab it by the horns and chase it rather than just sit in a numb state and let it pass by.

“I’m going to keep fighting, not just for me but for them.

“It’s even got to the point where I have gone away and bought birthday cards for the different ages.

“I’ve got gift cards and Christmas cards so I can be organised if the worst comes to the worst.

“You are planning for the worst but hoping for the best.”

The coronavirus pandemic has also impacted on the family’s ability to hold fundraisers, with events forced to be solely online.

Donations of raffle and auction prizes are still being sought to boost the fundraising total.

To help Trudie, go to uk.gofundme.com/f/treatment-for-trudie