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They'll get by with a little help from their Friends x

  • Miraculous Results

      26 May 2020
    Posted by: Kim Burrows

    So we are on the second round of these drugs and the results are miraculous. With these meds Steve is now walking completely unaided and able to dress himself. He has his sense of humour back (that's if you can call dad jokes humour lol). He is putting on weight and is able to do little projects like build shelves, build us a dining table. He is able to do housework and is able to now enjoy life. The oncologist told us last week that if he hadn't started this treatment when he did we would have lost him already. We need to fund a further 3 treatments before the government will take over the cost. Please, if you can help us to raise some funds for this life changing drug we would greatly appreciate it.

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  • Date Extended

      1 May 2020
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    Hi Whanau updating the page to extend the date. Hoping to keep this open ended as we know that Steve's continued treatment is going to need our continued support.

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  • $50,000 needed for Non-funded Medication

      21 April 2020
    Posted by: Kim Burrows

    We got the results of Steve's bone biopsy today and he does have the BRAF mutation in his cancer. This means he can get some unfunded treatment (on top of the funded one) called Cobimetinib and Vemurafenib. 70% of patients who have this treatment have a reduction in the cancer and it helps with quality of life. 20% of patients find the drug stabilises the disease and in 10% of patients the cancer progressively gets worse. This drug will not cure the disease but it will potentially give a better quality of life and extend his life. The cost of this drug is $10,031.80 per 28 day cycle. This is capped at $50,159 - so after 20 weeks of treatment we get it for free. We are starting the treatment this week but need to raise as much money as possible to help fund this.

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  • The Diagnosis

      12 April 2020
    Posted by: Kim Burrows

    So on the 20th of March we found out that Steve had Stage 4 Melanoma. This is not good news. At our first Oncology appointment we found out that if he didn't have treatment he would have roughly 2-3 months to live. With treatment the average is a year. This was a bit of a shock. He has started treatment and had Immunotherapy, Radiation Therapy and a Bone Biopsy all on one day. He is having to have blood transfusions. His pain levels have been hard to manage but we finally have that somewhat sorted. We are finding he needs to have his meds tweaked every four or five days.

    The bone biopsy will tell us if he has a certain mutation in his cancer which will mean he can have another treatment as well but that comes at a cost of $10,000 a month. This will help his quality of life and length of life. We are still waiting to hear the results.

    This has been a very expensive journey so far and without Steve's income we have been struggling a bit financially. But we know God has got this.

    We are just so appreciative of all our family and friends.

    Thanks

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