Farewelled
Alan Cade is treasuring the extra two or three months he spent with his wife, but not even an unsubsidised drug could help her in the end.
Alan Cade is treasuring the extra two or three months he spent with his wife, but her body had been through too much and not even an unsubsidised drug could help her in the end.
Rebekah Sands-cade has died after three years of battling cancer.
The 32-year-old mother of three had metastatic breast cancer, which is the most advanced stage of the disease, and it had spread to her bones, brain and lungs.
She died on Sunday.
For the past three months she had been using a drug called Ibrance and her family had been trying to find $5900 a month for the medication.
But Cade, 36, said the medication hit a snag when her white blood cell count dropped and would not lift back up.
‘‘They said if she continued to take the medication she would end up having a big internal bleed.’’
She decided to stop taking the medication, with the hope being that her white blood cell count would get high enough to start it again.
But, that was not the case. ‘‘Her body had been through too much treatment and she just could not cope any more,’’ Cade said.
Cade believed if Ibrance had been publicly funded, they would have got on to it sooner, giving it more of a chance.
Cade said he still wanted to see the medication funded, to give other people a chance.
‘‘It still gave us an extra two to three months with her. That was two to three months we wouldn’t have got [otherwise].’’
After she stopped taking the medication, it was only a couple of weeks later that she died.
‘‘She kept saying that she had a tummy bug and I said we have to go see a doctor.
‘‘We went to the hospice and they examined her and said that [the cancer] had progressed.’’
After being told she would not make it to Christmas, the Sandscade family decided to bring Christmas forward to her.
They held it at the hospice, with family and friends coming on the Saturday to celebrate.
Their children, aged 12, 6 and 4, were all dealing with her death differently, Cade said.
Sands-cade’s funeral is today.