Final fight for a better life
Tristyn Gretton won’t give up without a fight. Her life is being cut short by an aggressive form of cancer. She pays $7300 a month for unfunded treatment that lets her live life fully.
Quality is the key for Tristyn Gretton, whose life is being cut short by an aggressive form of cancer.
There is no cure for the Cambridge woman’s metastatic breast cancer. Spreading to her bones, it breaks down the structure of her body – her legs, her hips, her skull but her spine suffers most.
Gretton, 55, found a pea-sized lump under her armpit in 2011, which was quickly diagnosed as breast cancer.
‘‘I can still remember the day,’’ Gretton says. ‘‘Funnily enough, I was like: ‘Right, okay, so what are we going to do?’ not even really feeling the effects that I was going to die.
‘‘I knew it was going to be a tough journey but I’m a bit of a cup half-full person, which is to my detriment sometimes, but I was like, let’s get into this, let’s get on with it.’’
It took over her life. Every waking moment seemed dedicated to fighting the illness.
She went through the rough patches. The breast reconstruction, the chemotherapy and the radiotherapy.
But as difficult as it was, it also opened a rewarding career for her – working with people with addiction to drugs and alcohol at the Waikato DHB and at Hamilton’s The People’s Project.
She battled the cancer for five years, and won.
‘‘After five years, you are really considered as having no greater chance than anyone walking down the street of your breast cancer coming back. You’re pretty much like anybody else. You should be fine.’’
Last year, though, while cycling at the Avantidrome, Gretton felt pain behind her shoulder. The cancer was back and unre- lenting. ‘‘I was feeling relatively unwell; sore on my bike. I got off my bike and I couldn’t work out why everything had swapped over.’’ She motions with her hands – crossing them from side to side – the confusion she felt.
‘‘I was like: Where am I? Which way is out?’’ She returned to her doctor.
‘‘I was sitting in the waiting room and [the GP] came walking down the hallway and I looked at her face,’’ Gretton said. ‘‘She started crying.’’
Her only option now is two unfunded drugs – fulvestrant and palbociclib – which cost $7300 every four weeks.
‘‘Not only has it increased my life span, it’s reduced the pain. Quality? I can think at work. In fact, I think it has changed my life from when I was diagnosed.’’
With or without the medication, Gretton’s prognosis is grim. Last year’s diagnosis gave her two years, ‘‘if you’re lucky’’, doctors told her.
The clock is ticking but friends are pulling out the stops.
In June, Livingstone Builders held a fundraiser at the Nga¯ruawa¯hia Golf Club raising
$31,5000 – enough for 16 weeks of medication – and Harcourts Hamilton general manager Brian King, also a cancer survivor, is helping organise a fundraiser at the Cambridge Avantidrome on Saturday, June 30, at 7pm.
‘‘At some stage my body is going to work out how to get around it. I guess our bodies are smarter than we think,’’ Gretton said.
She spends as much of it as she can with her family – husband Errol Newlands, daughters Laura, 25, Elizabeth, 17, Isabel, 12, son-in-law Aaron and five-weekold grandson Isaac.
‘‘If it doesn’t get funded, if I still want to stay alive and it’s still working, I’ve got to find that money each month and I must admit, when you’ve got that thought of not being here hanging over you every month, you look at things differently. You look at your kids ... I’ve just got a new grandson. I look at life differently. I spend a lot of time with family and friends. Relationships are really important.’’
To help Tristyn Gretton raise funds for her cancer treatment, donate to her Givealittle page.
Seats at the fundraiser cost
$165 each or a table for 10 costs
$1500. Yesterdaythere were 10 seats left to sell. Email virginia.livingstone@icloud.com to attend.