Terminally ill woman grateful
As she took the first dose of a drug to combat her lung cancer, Gaye Fisher was grateful for the outpouring of public support that made it possible.
Osimertinib is funded in Australia, the United States and Britain. But not in New Zealand.
‘‘They’d rather we died, think,’’ Fisher said.
The 60-year-old is grateful. Despite going through eight years of ‘‘hell’’ and recently being diagnosed with three months to live, she feels lucky that an outpouring of support from friends, family and strangers helped raise more than $20,000. That will fund the drug for two months.
Sharing her family’s story with The Press bolstered that support. More than 100 donations had been made to a Givealittle page.
‘‘I am very lucky. I am very blessed, I really am.’’
Fisher’s partner, Max Hill, has done the research. Osimertinib is used for people with a specific genetic mutation after radiation, chemotherapy and other drugs have stopped working. The mutation is different but related to one Fisher already knows she has.
I‘‘We’ve taken a punt, saying ‘we will give this drug a go’ on the basis that we know in Australia that it has [had] positive outcomes,’’ Hill said. ‘‘It’s given good extension of life, so we’re hoping this will have a positive effect on Gaye but we don’t know.’’
Pharmac received a funding application for Osimertinib in November 2017. Director of operations Lisa Williams said expert clinical advisers had looked at that application twice last year.
‘‘. . . Based on the data provided, the benefits of this treatment are highly uncertain,’’ she said.
With the time she has left, Fisher wants to produce a biography of her son Adam, 27, who died in the February 22, 2011 quake. Ten days later, partner Becky Gane gave birth to their second son, Ashton. In 2015, the then-4-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia.
‘‘I am very lucky.’’
Gaye Fisher