Allies needed in fight for life

FIGHTING FOR LIFE: Deanna Trevarthen, in need of friends like never before. PICTURE/SUPPLIED

Life changed in an "absolute instant" when 44-year-old Deanna (Dee) Trevarthen was told she was suffering pleural mesothelioma (asbestos cancer). Just months earlier she had been undergoing fertility treatment in the hope of conceiving. Now, partner Greg Robertson said, she was fighting not to give new life but to save her own.

The couple are appealing for support as Deanna prepares to fight a battle that no one has ever won before. She has completed funded chemotherapy, but needs $65,000 for unfunded chemo to extend her life. Untreated her life expectancy is measured in weeks, maybe a few months.

The couple have now launched a givealittle page (www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/deesday/), which as of yesterday had raised $7750.

The couple have strong Far North connections. Greg is the son of Beverly (Hihi) and the late Les Robertson, one-time principal at Taipa Area School. He worked for the Northland Age as a sports reporter in the 1990s, and met Deanna when he was with the Northern Advocate's Bay Report in Kerikeri, where Deanna was selling advertising for the Age.

The shock of her diagnosis had been multiplied many-fold by the general acceptance that asbestos cancer was a disease of old age.

"The doctors were stunned that someone just 44 years old had asbestos cancer, a cancer that can lie waiting in the body for 50 years. We've read stats from the US where the average age of activation in pleural mesothelioma patients is 72," Greg said.

"The diagnosis was the culmination of some two months of tests, pokes, prods, pain, heartache and discomfort. What started off as a diagnosis of bronchitis evolved to pneumonia, hopes for it to be infection, and then ultimately establishing her to be the victim of asbestos.

"It more than likely happened some 30-odd years ago, we were told, the leading scenario being that of a loving little girl hugging her father home from work. An asbestos spore that clung to the fibres of his work clothes or his hair ... or when the-then tomboy played on-site while her electrician dad worked."

Deanna was determined to beat the disease, but first she had to buy time, he added. Chemo was fast-tracked, and she was already showing her fighting qualities, responding well to her first treatment. But mesothelioma was incurable, so her family and friends had begun scouring the world for a treatment or trial that could potentially work.

"That is in progress right now, but first she must finish three rounds of funded chemo (Pemetrexed) before buying more time through an unfunded course of Avastin, at a cost of $65,000. It's a necessary step to prepare her for a battle like no other," Greg said.

"But what started out as a selfish right to fight for her life soon changed when her GP told us of possible legislation changes to prepare for what could be a future mesothelioma spike. The Christchurch earthquakes no doubt sent spores into the air where rescue crews and Canterbury Kiwis were. We were told mesothelioma can take just one spore.

"What was selfish - to live - changed, and I saw her show a strength that made me pretty proud. She told me that she had the best chance to beat the disease; she was younger than most of its victims, and she could do it, she told me with tears streaming down her cheeks."

The first target was raising the $65,000 needed for the unfunded chemotherapy, followed by raising enough to take on the disease at its core.

"Every cent counts, so Deanna can have her 'Dee Day,' the day she stuns doctors and helps to cure this atrocious disease," Greg said.

"She's ready to fight, and those who know her will say she can be pretty darned determined when she sets her mind to something.

"There will be no giving in, that's for sure," he said.