Aroha gives mum of four fighting chance
Just over two months ago, the lives of Aroha and Moehewa Armstrong and their four children were flipped upside down when they got the news that Aroha had breast cancer.
Soon afterwards, Aroha had a mastectomy and was told it had been removed but she would still require chemotherapy.
The 43-year-old business innovation adviser’s two friends, data entrepreneur Lillian Grace and fashion designer Kiri Nathan, were going to take her out for coffee to celebrate the news after the followup oncologist appointment. They joined Aroha and Moehewa for what they thought would be a straightforward appointment to arrange the next treatment but were instead told the bad news: the cancer had spread.
The oncologist recommended Pertuzumab, a chemotherapy drug only funded for terminal cancer. Otherwise, it carried a hefty price tag of $6500 per treatment and Aroha needed four rounds.
“To be quite frank it’s a matter of life and death,” Moehewa said.
But in the five days after the appointment, $26,000 was raised for the family via a Givealittle page set up by Grace and Nathan.
Moehewa said the generosity had blown them away.
“When she went for her first shot she described it as an intravenous shot of love that was made possible by so many people,” he said.
“Even kids have got their piggybank money and put it towards Aroha.” He said doctors were “hitting her hard” with the chemotherapy but Aroha’s positive nature was holding the family together, with simple things like calling the chemotherapy “little Pacmen doing their job” whenever she was in pain.
Longstanding Rotorua GP Dr John Armstrong said seeing the
devastation caused by a cancer diagnosis in his profession made his daughter-in-law’s diagnosis even more difficult for him to deal with.
“Everybody just hates that word cancer,” he said.
“It’s one thing to get a diagnosis of cancer when it’s found on a screening mammogram and it’s early, but when you get a diagnosis and it’s already spread into the nodes it’s devastating.”
Aroha has another three months of intensive chemotherapy ahead, followed by radiation therapy, a different drug for 12 months and will need another for 10 years.
Breast Cancer Foundation research manager Adele Gautier said Pertuzumab was funded in some cases but not for those with Stage 3 cancer because there was mixed evidence on whether it could prevent cancer from coming back.
“It’s usually only for incurable cancer that it’s funded.”
Aroha is at the high end of Stage 3 but does not qualify for the funding.
Though feeling “wiped out” from her treatment, Aroha said she was grateful for what she’d learned about life since her diagnosis.
“[It was] a reminder about how beautiful life is and how much I have taken for granted.”