The lucky unlucky: ‘Seven years might not sound much’
WHERE the album of dad memories should be, John Ashton feared his youngest son would have only blank space.
William was just six when Ashton was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, in July 2013. Ashton had sought help for a cough but, as a nonsmoking keen runner, he didn’t raise lung cancer red flags. The GP tried switching his blood pressure medication, and an asthma inhaler.
A chest X-ray revealed the fatal truth. The numbers gave him six to nine months.
As an associate professor in pharmacology at Otago University, Ashton knew where hope hid. He discovered lung cancer came in different mutations, and an Auckland specialist was running a drug trial for patients with the ALK variant. Ashton tested positive.
The drug – crizotinib – wasn’t yet registered in New Zealand but the trial gave him free access. Seven years and $800,000-$1 million worth of crizotinib later, Ashton has seen William finish intermediate school, and grow taller than his wife.
He’s watched his older boy Stewart transform from a socially reticent teen into a theatresports captain and Shakespeare competition winner.
‘‘Seven years might not sound much to people with a life expectancy of another 40 or 50 years. But when you’re talking in terms of the development of children, it’s actually a very long time.’’
When headaches last year signalled the cancer had spread to his brain, for two months he paid $6500 a month for another unfunded ALK drug, alectinib, before Pharmac agreed to fund it. Now, Ashton is back to working full time and living a normal family life.
But he feels like the soldier in Saving Private Ryan, running up the beach in the Normandy landings. ‘‘Everyone is falling around him and he’s still going.’’
Lung cancer remains a poor, stigmatised cousin, he says. Drug prices are excessive, but Pharmac also needs reform.
And family doctors need to get better at diagnosis.
‘‘It’s not a sexy disease. There’s no-one growing moustaches [for lung cancer] in November. There’s no pink ribbon. A middle-aged bloke with lung cancer doesn’t really tug at the heart strings.’’