Help Jules in her battle with Melanoma

Julia McNicol is a vibrant 60-year-old married to Alan and lives in Napier. She has 4 adult children and a young grandson. She spent a large part of her life in Feilding before moving to Hawkes Bay 16 years ago.

In December 2017 Jules cut her finger in an often-experienced kitchen accident. The cut didn’t heal and after numerous medical appointments the wound was diagnosed as melanoma. In April 2018 Jules underwent surgery. Her finger was partially amputated and a lymph node was removed from her armpit. The biopsy from this operation confirmed that Jules had stage 3 Acral Melanoma.

This Melanoma is aggressive. It doesn’t respond to chemotherapy or conventional treatments.

The medical advice of two leading Melanoma specialists in Auckland is for Julia to commence a 12-month treatment of the new cancer drug Keytruda. Treatment will consist of 17 infusions every 3 weeks. The oncologists estimate that there is a 50% chance of the drugs being effective.

At this stage, Keytruda is not government funded and is exceptionally expensive. The cost of the drug is $69,000 and $790 for each of the 17 infusions. That’s a total of $83,000. The good news is that the drug can be infused in Palmerston North, rather than Auckland, which will considerably reduce her travel costs to and from Napier.

Julia will start treatment,hopefully, this month, that is, July 2018. Any donation by way of this Givealittle page will all go towards Julia’s treatment costs.

The great support we have received from the Dugdale Charitable Trust [distant relatives of ours] means that your donations are tax deductible. They will also make sure Jules gets 100% of the money donated by paying the 5% costs involved with the admin of this page. We are truely grateful to them for this gesture.