Kia Ora Everyone - I just wanted to say to everyone who joined a MASSIVE donation effort last night - you are AMAZING. I have a post on my Facebook page (Emma Matthews) that is public and ready to share across social media. If you are able to share this, that would be incredible. If we can manage around $8000 OVERNIGHT - imagine what we can do in a few days!
I had a CT scan a couple of weeks ago. While the cancer hasn’t spread, unfortunately some of my existing tumours have started growing again. I was hoping for a long break from treatment, but sadly that’s not to be.
Tomorrow I head to Christchurch for a bone scan and radiation treatment to my hip, which I’m hoping will help with some of the chronic pain. Then, in a couple of weeks, I’ll be starting chemo again — indefinitely.
Unfortunately, the best treatment options for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer aren’t funded through the NZ public health system. So I’ll be transferring to a private hospital and self-funding a drug called Trodelvy, at a cost of around $150,000 for the first year.
This part makes me incredibly sad. I’ve received amazing care from the doctors and nurses in the public system, and I’m so grateful for everything they’ve done for me. But the gaps and underfunding in our healthcare system have become painfully real. Treatment that would be a standard option overseas simply isn’t available to people like me here.
So I'm looking at using whatever funds I have and have already had some offers of help from amazing family and friends to buy some more time with my boys ❤️ I've spent the last few weeks trying to find a better option but I guess this is what cancer care comes down to here, Give A Little pages and hope... 🤞🏻🍀💕 At least I have the opportunity to try and I'm so very grateful for that.
in light of Jen's update, the target is now set for her to access non-subsidised treatment. sharing this total will mean that hopefully we can get to that total and she can keep fighting.
Just home from an amazing 3 weeks in the States.
5-6 weeks ago I was struggling through chemo. I ended up in ED for blood and platelet transfusions and days of painful injections at hospital to get my white blood cells counts up. Made it through a pretty awful week with the help of my awesome friends.
Ended up skipping the last two doses of chemo to recover and then got on a plane with the boys and headed overseas.
Three weeks of beautiful memories with family and friends. Adventures with the kids and all the little special moments - multiple birthday parties surrounded by family, nights catching fireflies, kids playing soccer and basketball with their cousins, 4th of July fireworks, hugs and long talks, saw Noah turn 13, water slides and ice creams on hot summer days, catching critters in creeks in the woods...
Thank you so much to everyone who helped make it happen. Feel so lucky to have such amazing family and friends and the chance to go home. Hoping with all my heart that I'll see you all again next year and a few more summers after that 💕🤞🏻🍀
Had a couple weeks off chemo to let my liver recover and now back into chemo again this week. I had back and hip pain flare ups a few weeks ago and had a CT scan to make sure no major issues but it looks like chemo is working and tumors are shrinking. On the last month of chemo for now and then hopefully a bit of reprieve and recovery, keeping fingers crossed for a long period of stability to get back to life for awhile. But the little breaks have been awesome - my energy is still down and there's a hole in my hip bone from the tumor, so I can't do high impact activities but I have been getting out for some short paddles (a seal swam around and under our SUPs the last trip out!), watching Logan run cross country and Noah play basketball, and back at work a little to organise froggy conservation projects 🐸 plus have had amazing friends chipping in around the garden and lots of social visits and catch ups with others including a Breast Cancer Society fundraiser lunch that Velma Vermaat invited me to at NMIT yesterday
On the up and up... So grateful for all the little things. Too easy to take our health for granted until it's a problem and for now, happy to just be living and surrounded by so many lovely people, time with my boys, a warm home and beautiful places.
And for all of you who have been here in person and on calls and emails for the constant ups and downs of the last several months - thank you!!! I couldn't do this without you 💕
Had a few really horrible weeks of chemo...but my oncologist returned from overseas and dropped my chemo dose and suddenly life seems a bit more manageable. All relative of course 🙃 chemo sucks but I'm managing to eat three meals a day again most days now, can drive and leave the house again, do small walks, play with my boys and work a little.
My parents came over from the states and totally spoiled the boys for the school holidays... so lovely!!! nice to have some quality time with them, especially since I wasn't stuck at home feeling miserable.
Meagan Goodman and Hamish Roborgh took me and the boys to Anatori on the West Coast for Anzac weekend - such a welcome escape from town! nice to be in a beautiful spot with great company 💕 grateful for time in the sunshine, out in nature
I think the mental side of the current situation has been one of the hardest aspects. A few weeks ago, I felt like I was dying and was having frequent intense anxiety attacks. But a little relief and the anxiety has receded. So enjoying the reprieve, the cuddles from my boys, the sunshine, good times and conversation with friends, nudging big projects forward with passionate workmates, good food, being outside. And in the meantime, the chemo is doing its job. I've completed weaned myself off the morphine from 8 pills a day, CT scan in Christchurch showed no tumor bulging out of my hip bone now, tumor on my chest wall has shrunk... Fingers crossed, prayers and hope for that to continue
It's been a tough week. Painful. Feeling pretty awful. At the start of the week my blood counts were too low for me to receive chemo. I got an injection of pegfilgrastim instead which gets your bone marrow to dump blood cells- and also causes a lot of intense bone pain. The morphine wasn't enough to stop that.
But my blood levels went up. Wednesday was surgery to insert a port a catheter that connects to the blood vessels in my neck so that I could receive chemo etc into that as the IVs have become too painful and keep failing. My friend Ruth picked me up for surgery at 7:30 am - prepped by one of my favorite nurses, surgery went through without a hitch, a couple hours in recovery and then I walked upstairs for chemotherapy. A few days of feeling pretty sick after that. Finally started eating again on Saturday. Though my energy has been so low and I've been weak and tired. My friend Eva coaxed me out to the beach to walk and sit in the sun with the boys and the dog- highlight of the weekend. So grateful to live in such a beautiful place. 💕
Kids have been absolutely amazing - helping out in the yard and around the house. We made sushi tonight and played card games and cuddled on the couch watching TV.
But it makes me teary eyed... This is not how I wanted to be a mum. I wanted to have energy and take them on adventures.... hopefully I'll get there again. For awhile. But for now, grateful for this and that I've ended the week feeling a bit better than before.
It's hard to answer when someone asks me how I am. This last month has been a rollercoaster of emotions and so many tears. Best at this point to take life day by day. And in that respect, I've had a little run of good days this week and I'm so grateful for that. Because of the mess and stay in hospital after the last round of chemo, I've had an unexpected week off treatment. Though I'm tired it's been lovely and thanks to the morphine, pain free.
Over the weekend, me and the boys joined the Department of Conservation Relay for Life team. Organised by the amazing Shelly Sidley. It was a lovely day out with the kids and nice to celebrate with friends and workmates and other survivors. To have a day of positivity and fun, a few tears shed remembering friends who didn't win their battle with cancer at the candlelight ceremony but overall more smiles and laughter than sadness, raising money for an awesome organization.
A couple short days back in the office was a welcome bit of normality getting back into frog conservation - thank you to all my workmates and colleagues who are keeping all our froggie projects going 🐸
And lots of medical planning for the weeks ahead. Back to chemo next week, getting a port surgically inserted on Wed, radiation in a few weeks.
Oh and some great news!!! Chemo is working - the one tumor they can measure through the skin is shrinking! Hooray! Hopefully that means the other 4 are shrinking too🤞🏻
Thanks again for all your support! Jen 💕
Good to read about some normal and fun moments, even if made poignant by memories of some loss. Glad you were able to focus on work a bit. Thinking of you and your sons.
Home at last!!!! after 4 days in hospital following a reaction to chemo session #2. A little more tired, a bit bruised and clogged up. Thank you to all the people who made the last few days a little less shitty - with company and food, taking care of kids and my dog, talking me down from my anxiety, rescuing me and putting in my 4th IV when the first three failed, gifts and goodies, conversation and encouragement, sitting for hours in the emergency room till 1 am, setting up meal trains and give a little pages to help me and the boys as we start down this track (and to all of you who have donated money and meals- you are all absolute superstars and I feel so loved!!!!). You are all amazing!!!
I may have been dealt a shit hand in life when it comes to cancer, but I've won when it comes to friends and family, workmates and neighbors. Thank you for having my back last time, now and into the future. I couldn't do this without my village 💕
