My mum’s breast cancer came back a month ago - it’s stage 4 and it’s metastasised to her bones. Her life expectancy is about 6 months without treatment. She has triple negative breast cancer which is rarer, more aggressive and significantly harder to treat than the more common hormone-responsive breast cancers.
There’s a new immunotherapy drug, pembrolizumab, which is effective on advanced triple negative breast cancer when given alongside standard chemotherapy. But it costs £3000 per treatment and she needs 18 rounds of it. Her oncologist applied for funding and got it!
After 6 months of treatment my mum should have 23 months of “progression free survival” compared to 16 months if she had chemo alone. She’s only 57 so every extra day I can have my mum in life is truly a gift. I’m so so grateful for our NHS.
Emperor@feddit.uk 1 year ago
That’s fantastic news - “success” hardly does it justice. You’ll treasure that extra time you have together for the rest of your life.
Someone@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Thank you! I was absolutely devastated when the cancer first came back and we realised how little time she had left. An extra 7 months is incredible! Now I’m trying to convince her to take my hair for a wig. It will make her so much happier when she loses hers again.
Emperor@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Yes, do what you can do make your extra time as special as possible and if a wig helps, go for it. Remember to also use this time wisely and document everything you can - get videos of her telling her old stories, family memories, jokes or songs. I’d also consider getting a swab for genetic genealogy purposes (although it may be the doctors have offered a DNA test if there’s a genetic component - she’s very young for this and at least one friend who went through cancer recently found it was inheritable).
I lost my Mum in a car crash when I was 27 and you lose so much - her grandkids largely know her from photos and the stories we tell. Unfortunately, those don’t really capture her personality and spirit like a video would. My Dad died during lockdown and it was 4 days, start to finish, and for most of the time he was on morphine so there was no real way to properly talk to him or even for anyone in the wider family to say their goodbyes. So any extra time you have is really important, make good use of it.