Cheryl Briggs wants to stay alive for her nine-year-old son, Ben. Photo / Supplied
Cheryl Briggs wants to stay alive for her nine-year-old son, Ben. Photo / Supplied
A Christchurch woman who has been told this is likely her last Christmas, is battling for medication to ward off her melanoma and stay alive for her nine-year-old son.
Cheryl Briggs, 42, had started treatment for the cancer around April this year. She initially found one small mole on her leg which she had removed.
"Within about two weeks I think i had 30 moles appear. And now I have probably over 100."
Briggs estimated it was after her seventh dose of the Keytruda treatment that doctors did a CT scan - not on the leg itself but on the rest of her body. Because moles were still appearing on the upper half of her body, doctors made the call to take her off Keytruda.
Around August doctors sent her away with painkillers and estimated she had around three months to live. However, a scan around two weeks after she stopped the treatment revealed the medicine had been working and she had fewer moles.
She went back to the hospital with the scans but was told that because she was over the 12 weeks, she couldn't be put back on the same drug trial. The other option she had was chemo.
"I've read about chemo and know that it can actually kill me a lot faster and cause infection and that," she said.
So now Briggs is trying to find the $17,000 needed for each infusion to save her life.
It isn't her first battle with the cancer, either.
Her first diagnosis had been back in her 30s, when she was pregnant with her youngest son Ben. The cancer had first been diagnosed in her knee and had then travelled upwards to her lymph nodes.
Doctors removed these and she went through radiation, which removed the cancer. The melanoma diagnosis earlier this year had followed closely on the heels of her celebration of five years in remission.
Briggs said walking was now becoming difficult and she had been supplied with a wheelchair by the hospital.
Briggs said she had over 100 moles on her legs which would burst, causing her to lose blood and fluid. Photo / Supplied
"My leg swells because of the lymphoedema which causes the moles to burst and I lose blood and I lose fluid. Because I can't push my stocking on to push the fluid down - that would rip the moles - they found a wrap for me that velcros up."
However, the wrap cost $600 - which Briggs didn't have. A man, who didn't want to be named, had paid for this for her.
The Christchurch local has two sons - a 25-year-old and a 9-year-old, Ben, who lives with her. She said the situation was particularly hard for Ben.
"He's having to get me stuff to clean the blood up, he's watching it bleed and he's watching it move over my leg. Some days I can't drive the car, I can't get my underwear to go on some days."
There was a nurse who came into Briggs' home each day to help out, but she said there was "only so much they could do".
While Briggs didn't have family nearby that were able to help, she was expecting them to visit at Christmas.
If she died, Briggs said Ben would be passed over to the care of his father's parents. She had separated from his father some time ago and said he didn't live in the area.
Briggs said she had also contacted the Ministry of Health as well as a local MP. But she felt she was going round in circles trying to get someone to listen.
"I have a right to live. But they're giving me no right."
A friend of Briggs', Nicky Meadowcroft, stepped in to help after seeing a post about her struggle on social media.
Meadowcroft said it was "grossly unfair" that Pharmac wouldn't put her back on the treatment.
The West Coast local had also set up a Givealittle page as a last-ditch attempt to raise funds for the treatment and help the small family live, while Briggs is unable to work.
"It's just really sad for Ben if something happens to her," Meadowcroft said.
Medical Director of the Cancer Society Dr Chris Jackson said he had noticed a handful of patients resorting to means like Givealittle in a bid to access cancer treatments recently.
"I think the gap between what is effective and what is funded is just getting bigger. More people are falling into this hole of not being able to access the best available drugs they can get for their condition."
Jackson said there was more Pharmac could do to help the approximate 350 New Zealanders living with advanced melanoma each year.
"If they were in Australia they would get several options of drugs, and in New Zealand they only have the chance to get one."
The doctor urged those who were unhappy with advice from their doctor, to seek a second medical opinion.
• Funded for the treatment of melanoma. • Approved for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (which accounts for about 80 per cent of lung cancers) where the tumour shows a large presence of the PD-L1 protein. • Keytruda is a type of immunotherapy that works by blocking the PD-1 pathway which helps your body detect and fight cancer cells.
