‘We’ve taken hit after hit’: Grieving family appeal for a little more time
Glen and Mandy Jenner have already lost two sons. Now, writes Virginia Fallon, they’re desperate to keep their niece alive as long as possible.
Grief, as we all know, is rarely distributed equally and Glen Jenner is struggling to make sense of what’s befallen his family.
On Friday he’s speaking from his Wainuiomata home while his wife Mandy is pottering in the garden. The pair have been through enough torment over the years, he says, and now they’re feeling like s... again.
Ultimately though, there is no sense to be made of it all; it just isn’t fair.
‘‘This is Christmas and everyone’s thinking ‘this has been a bad year so let’s look forward to the new one’. We can’t do that; there hasn’t been a good year since 2013.’’
The Jenners and their family have had more than their fair share of grief since that last good year. In 2014, Glen was at work when an inconsolable Mandy phoned to say their eldest son Dwayne had died.
The 36-year-old business owner and father had left work the previous day complaining of a headache, popped himself into bed and never woke up after suffering a brain aneurysm.
Still reeling, six years later Glen was again at work when Mandy called and history repeated. She had gone to wake their youngest son Jason for their planned coffee date and receiving no response, tapped on the door.
‘‘Jase, are you dead in there?’’, she called before entering to find him collapsed in the bathroom.
The 29-year-old early childhood teacher had died of an aortic dissection.
The deaths of their two fit and healthy boys was incomprehensible; unbelievable; Mandy says later through tears.
‘‘They had such big hearts; I just can’t understand why the best are taken.’’
And now it’s happening again. The Jenners’ niece is dying of breast cancer and the couple are desperately trying to help raise money for the unfunded treatment that could prolong her life.
Mandy describes Karrissa McNamara as her substitute daughter, saying that what’s happening to her is in a way worse than what befell her boys.
‘‘We’ve just taken hit after hit, but at least with them passing we had to accept it on the day it happened. We’re just trying to get Kris some more time.’’
Her niece, a midwife, has brought so many children into the world and her family are determined to keep her in it as long as possible.
‘‘She’s made so many families so happy; she deserves all the help we can give her.’’
In Hawera, McNamara’s children are playing in the background as she recounts finding a lump lurking in her breast during the last days of 2020.
Back then she was 31 and didn’t panic both because of her age and a lack of familial history of cancer; the confirmation she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation that heightens the risk of breast and ovarian cancer came later.
All her sisters have since been tested and found they carry it too.
A mammogram and ultrasound followed, as did a confirmation of stage one breast cancer. A lumpectomy found plenty of healthy tissue surrounding the cancer and with that good news McNamara started chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Hope was short-lived, however. This September she began struggling to breathe and talk while taking a clinic, and an X-ray that afternoon showed nodules in her lungs.
‘‘They looked like cancer and of course it was.’’
She was raced to New Plymouth Hospital where she says a lack of beds meant she was left crying alone in a corridor for four hours; an experience she wants to highlight in the hope it’ll change other people’s treatment.
‘‘Because it was evening there was just no support from anyone. I was very distressed and wonder if they could have called someone from the Breast Cancer Foundation or similar. It’s not the nurses’ fault, the hospitals are just so full.’’
Recounting how the next day an MRI found cancer in her brain, the mother of three resorts to a bit of gallows humour.
‘‘It’s called triple negative breast cancer – the most aggressive breast cancer there is – I’m very lucky.’’
Following a ‘‘huge delay’’, she’s had radiation on her brain and begun chemotherapy and the unfunded immunotherapy drug Tecentriq that’s costing her $6000 every three weeks. The sum includes oncologist and private hospital fees as well as GST the Government slaps on the drug.
While McNamara isn’t sure how long it will extend her life, she believes it could be some years; precious time for any parent, though something this one suspects is behind the reason it’s not funded here.
‘‘Once you’re stage 4 you feel like they think you’re not worth it because you’re going to die anyway.’’
And although a recent scan showed the nodules in her lungs are shrinking, she says it’s unfair she’s had to rely on her community, friends and family to fundraise for the treatment.
‘‘I’m on all these support groups and everyone overseas is taking it; it’s what you go on in America and they just think it’s mad New Zealanders can’t.
‘‘You just wish you could go back in time and get health insurance.’’
McNamara is one of only four midwives in Hawera and the small town has rallied around her, joining in the fundraising efforts of her family.
The Jenners have run a raffle – the winner donated the pamper pack back to McNamara – and an engineer in-law built a fireplace that’s raised thousands in ticket sales.
A Givealittle page has garnered nearly $30,000 in donations.
A cost-share programme means that Roche, the drug manufacturer, will take over the cost once the treatment reaches $52k.
The family will still be stung with hefty fees to administer it, but McNamara says they’re closing in on the goal.
She’s also fundraised for other cancer patients by organising a Pink Ribbon breakfast earlier this year and is determined to highlight both the importance of testing for BRCA1 and the unfairness of unfunded treatment.
‘‘I feel so let down. I dedicated so much time to the health system, so much time . . . I’m just asking for a little bit more time for myself.
‘‘I’ve just had the unlucky stick, the universe obviously hates me, but I swear I’m a good person.’’
‘‘This is Christmas and everyone’s thinking ‘this has been a bad year so let’s look forward to the new one.’ We can’t do that; there hasn’t been a good year since 2013.’’ Glen Jenner