Harness horse trainer’s hell

The family and friends of Kumeu trainer Liza Milina are rallying around her as she fights an aggressive and likely terminal brain tumour.

In early September, Liza went to the doctors after persistent headaches and was referred to hospital where she a sinus infection was diagnosed.

Unfortunately, the situation was far direr and her world was turned on its head moments later.

‘‘The doctors ordered a CT Scan to track where the infection might have been but instead they found a massive, malignant stage 4 tumour,’’ said Liza’s sister, Tina Barlow.

‘‘At the time they didn’t really tell us much apart from the fact that it was very aggressive and there aren’t a lot of treatments for it.’’

The prognosis was, and still is, dire. Liza was told that without treatment she would have three months. That was two-and-a-half months ago.’’

‘‘Radiotherapy is the only treatment available to her in New Zealand, but because it has to be such a huge level of radiation to penetrate her skull, it will actually kill her.’’ Tina Barlow on sister Liza Milina

Due to the limitations of New Zealand’s public health system, and the fact Liza had no health insurance, she has struggled to get anything beyond the most basic and generalized care.

‘‘Family and friends have been paying to get her private MRIs done to track the progress of the tumour, because this was not available under the hospital system,’’ said Barlow.

‘‘These are more than a few thousand a pop but what price do you put on someone’s life? The latest MRI, that we paid for, has shown that the tumour has doubled in size.’’

Liza started radiotherapy yesterday but, Barlow, says, it is ‘‘like doing a deal with the devil’’.

‘‘Radiotherapy is the only treatment available to her in New Zealand, but because it has to be such a huge level of radiation to penetrate her skull, it will actually kill her.

‘‘We might get an extra year for her with that treatment, but it will do so much additional damage to her brain that she will ultimately die from it.

‘‘It’s so powerful, it is comparable to what you read about when they have nuclear accidents overseas and people die of radiation poisoning.’’

Milina is a fighter, and Barlow has done ‘‘hundreds of hours’’ of research in the past few months, so they are going to dig in and look at alternative treatments.

‘‘We have decided that radiation is not going to be our only option. Liza wants to fight this hard and her biggest desire is to get back to training horses again.

‘‘That’s the one aim on her ‘bucket list’. The only thing she wants is to get back to training horses for however long she can. So, what we are looking at are options overseas.

‘‘We’ve done a massive amount of research in to possible options including a treatment called immunotherapy, which uses your own immune system to fight it. It’s not available in New Zealand but there are options off shore that we have investigated.’’

Such undertakings are not cheap and, while Liza’s family and friends are doing the best they can to support her financially, they have set up a givealittle page in an effort to aid with the mounting costs here in New Zealand and the expected huge bills for treatments overseas.

‘‘We are out of options,’’ said Barlow. ‘‘If we don’t start radiotherapy, she probably wouldn’t see Christmas. But we don’t want to do it for too long as it will kill her anyway.

Barlow says her sister is putting on a brave face, but as she stares death in the face, she has realised she’s not prepared to give up and it’s time to ask for help.

‘‘Like all people in the racing field, Liza is very staunch and strong-minded. But she’s very realistic and realises we are out of options here in New Zealand.’’

Liza has been back at home recently, but is in and out of hospital regularly, and has had three major surgeries since the diagnosis.

If you would like to make a donation to Liza’s plight, please head to her givealittle page https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/lizamilina