Help Alyssa raise funds to treat her brain cancer

In August this year, I marked nine years living with metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer. At diagnosis, I didn’t have the usual lump in the boob symptoms, no family history. What I did have was extensive bone tumours from my neck to my pelvis and a grim outlook.

I thought back then my diagnosis meant that was that, it was all over red rover with a funeral to plan. But of course, that never happened. In fact, I am one of the lucky few with my disease, less than 1 in 4, who survive for more than five years.

During these past nine years living with cancer, life somehow made it my normal. Five different chemos, a brain tumour in 2012 followed by radiation, a full on tumour in my right breast followed by radiation and a double mastectomy in 2015 - just sat alongside all of the good stuff – travel, friends, work, a wedding to my lovely husband in 2016. I was able to bounce back and keep having a good life.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about cancer, is that it’s relentless, it’s nefarious and it always surprises you.

About three months ago, I was diagnosed with leptomeningeal metastases, a rare brain cancer that somehow spread from my body. The diagnosis has been devastating for my husband and I because we thought ‘ok, this is really it’. But after the initial shock (and a lot of wine) we rolled up our sleeves, talked to specialists, endured some not so nice whole brain radiation (me, not my husband!), and have tried to figure out the next steps.

One of those next steps is a taking a drug called Kadcyla. Kadcyla is an innovative treatment that can give women with advanced breast cancer more time and a better quality of life. It’s combination of two drugs, Herceptin and a chemotherapy drug called emtansine. While the brain radiation I went through did reduce the leptomeningeal metastases by about 35-40%, my doctors think Kadcyla should further help (and treat the rest of my body too).

Kadcyla is available in New Zealand but isn’t currently funded in the public system. This means people like me have to pay for this drug in private. And it’s very expensive. I started taking and paying for Kadcyla a few weeks ago because I couldn’t risk my brain getting worse.

The goal of this page is, with your help, raise funds towards paying for the drug itself ($63,000 or $7,845 every three weeks), cover any other treatment related costs and help me out if I can’t work during treatment.

In 2009 when I was a newly diagnosed 34 year old, I could never have guessed that I would be alive today. But I like to think I’m made of tough stuff. So, here I am sending out a bit of a mayday. It’s really strange and weird asking for help but if you can, it would mean the world.

Thank you so much

Alyssa Mackay (nee Hardy) xo