Cancer treatment for mom
Norwegian version: https://spleis.no/171223
A lot of people have been asking questions about the currency conversion so we made this chart. Hope it helps. Thanks again everyone! We feel so blessed for all of your donations!
Our dear mother and friend, Heidi, is a kind and sporty lady of almost 61 years old. She is a trained psychiatric nurse that lives in Bodø, Norway and is the mother of three adult children.
In the fall of 2011, Heidi was diagnosed with colon cancer at 51 years old. She was treated with chemotherapy in combination with radiation and surgery. The treatment was successful and her cancer was cured so Heidi started to look ahead! However, in January 2020, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer. In retrospect, it turns out that this may have been caused from the radiation she received in 2011. Heidi was then put on chemotherapy followed by a successful operation around Easter 2020 where they removed her bladder, uterus, ovaries, and some lymph nodes. Since the treatment, she would go for regular check-ups and they had found no cancer. During this past Christmas of 2020, she started having severe back pain. Unfortunately, the pain turned out to be cancer in the abdomen area. A new biopsy was performed and the samples confirmed that she now has a rare type of cancer called small-cell carcinoma. The old biopsy samples from her bladder were then re-examined confirming small traces of small-cell cancer. Therefore, it became clear that her bladder cancer from last year has since reappeared and has begun to spread.
Heidi belongs to a small group of patients, which can prolong the time it takes before new medicines are approved for treatment. Both the doctors at Nordland Hospital (Norway’s public hospital) and at Aleris (Norway’s private hospital) are positive about giving her immunotherapy, as studies have shown that immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy has had a good effect for small cell cancer. There is therefore reason to believe that Heidi will also benefit from this. Unfortunately, it is simply a technicality that it is not covered by the public health system even though it is recommended by them as a potential effective treatment. Therefore, we must go seek treatment in the private system.
A round of immunotherapy at Aleris costs 239,000 nok (£21,000) plus expenses and is given every 3 weeks for 12 weeks. The treatment is given in Oslo which means that Heidi must travel every 3 weeks. If the treatment has the desired effect, it is common to continue immunotherapy for another 1 to 2 years. We have hope that if it is shown as effective, the public sector will be able to take over the treatment and costs. However, as the immunotherapy is most effective when done in parallel with chemotherapy, it becomes difficult to prove to the public health system that the cancer is shrinking due to the immunotherapy specifically and not the chemo. Therefore, we must proceed with the assumption that we will have to take on the full cost of immunotherapy for the entire 1-2 years (£45,000-£90,000). Due to these very high costs, we have started this crowd funding page to help our beautiful mom and best friend. She has many concerns for her future and we strive to ensure that the full financial burden is not one of them. Any and all contributions are greatly appreciated and we are so thankful for your help. If by chance there is a profit, the money will be donated to the Norwegian Cancer Association.