“Google cured my cancer!”
If it wasn’t for her own online quest to find a cure, Sue would have died from cancer
Just two years after she received the all-clear of stage three breast cancer, Sue Nicklen found herself struggling to breathe on a trip to France with her husband Mark.
“We’d been travelling for 13 hours, but I needed immediate hospital treatment,” she recalls.
After urgent scans, Sue, 54, was told the devastating news her cancer was back and she had only 12 weeks to live, because it had spread to her liver and lungs.
“Telling my two kids, Ellie, 23, and Sam, 22, was the hardest part. They had so many questions I couldn’t answer,” says Sue.
In October 2015, the British mum received more bad news when she found out her body had become allergic to the chemotherapy drugs she was on – and she was unlikely to make it to Christmas.
RACE AGAINST TIME
As the cancer continued to spread across her body, Sue frantically searched online for other treatment options.
“I demanded to try a new chemotherapy drug called Docetaxol D in combination c with immunotherapy,” im she tells te Woman’s Day, explaining e the mix of drugs d could slow down the th growth of her cancerous ca tumours. Less than two years lat later, she received an ev even more frightening diagnosis when doctors sat her down and told her the cancer had spread to her brain. Sue now had 17 tumours, but she refused to have whole brain radiation because it could leave her permanently brain damaged.
In a race against time, Sue came across Gamma Knife radiation online – a type of treatment that uses precisely directed beams of radiation to target each tumour in the brain – which is offered free by Britain’s National Health Service.
DEFYING EXPECTATIONS
After enduring months of having a metal brace screwed to her skull for the targeted radiation, the mum-of-two defied doctors’ expectations. An MRI scan in April last year revealed the tumours had shrunk.
“And not only were they small, but I only have five tumours now,” she says, adding doctors thought it was a miracle.
“I’m so thankful I’ve got a future to look forward to,” says Sue, smiling. “I’ve been incredibly lucky to survive not just one, but 17 tumours.”