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.
It’s been 15 years, but my lupus is stubborn - it’s never gone into remission. HCQ, MTX, prednisolone and a boat load of painkillers worked well enough for a long time, but my disease activity is flaring badly atm. Probably the stress of my mums diagnosis, - it happened last time too. My dad has RA. He’s been on anti-TNF for donkey years now - he was in the original clinical study! It enabled him to work a physical job for 20 years when he couldn’t do his shirt up or bend to put his shoes on before. Magical medicines - absolutely wank diseases. I wish you many more good days than bad and optimal LFTs!