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It was Friday the 13th and Kayla Bradford was in a bed at Queensway Carleton Hospital’s emergency department, waiting to learn the results of a brain scan and chest X-ray she had just undergone.
The 26-year-old mother from Kanata, who had been suffering worrisome symptoms, from a persistent cough to weight loss and exhaustion, had driven herself to the hospital, leaving her fiancé at home with their two-month-old son.
“I guess I don’t know what I was expecting. I expected to get a scan and leave. Cancer was never on my mind.”
When a doctor came in and asked if she was alone, advising she should call someone, she knew the news was not going to be good.
When it came, she was in shock. The scans identified spots on her lung and brain that turned out to be advanced lung cancer. She was a young woman who had never smoked and she had lung cancer.
“The first thing that went through my mind was my son. I have a two-month-old baby. I need to see him grow up. This can’t be happening to me.”
That was in January. Ten months later, Bradford’s son Leighton is now a year old, and she has become a veteran of the cancer wars and an advocate for more attention to and compassion for the disease.
Each year, 20,000 Canadians die from lung cancer. That is more than breast cancer, colorectal cancer and prostate cancer combined. Although it is responsible for more than 25 per cent of cancer deaths, lung cancer researchers receive only about six per cent of research dollars targeted at specific cancers, according to Lung Cancer Canada.
What is more, according to a recent survey, 20 per cent of Canadians admit to having less sympathy for those with lung cancer than with other kinds of cancers. And that public sympathy factor, according to the survey, has fallen in the past decade.
Bradford is among about 15 per cent of lung cancer patients who never smoked, something she feels she has to tell people when they learn she has lung cancer, because of the stigma around the disease.
Ottawa oncologist Dr. Paul Wheatley-Price, who is president of Lung Cancer Canada, said the thinking around lung cancer has to change — both for patients who were smokers and for those who have never smoked.
“We struggle with advocacy and raising awareness for lung cancer, because it is widely perceived that they deserve it. There is a stigma,” said Wheatley-Price. “We would argue that it doesn’t really matter if you smoked or worked hard to quit smoking or are someone like Kayla who never smoked. If you pass away you will be equally mourned by your family and you are equally deserving of the best treatments.”
Wheatley-Price said he is beginning to see a change in awareness from the days when it was difficult to do any public fundraising. Bradford spoke at major fundraising events for lung cancer — called An Evening of Hope — in Ottawa and Toronto during November, which is lung cancer awareness month.
“I feel like I am making a difference,” she said.
The cure rate for lung cancer remains dismal compared with some other cancers — 17 per cent of lung cancer patients are alive five years after their diagnosis, compared with 87 per cent of breast cancer patients and 95 per cent of prostate cancer patients.
But there is hope that things are beginning to change.
A major change for lung cancer results would be if patients were diagnosed earlier. Currently, most patients have advanced cancer, and many, like Bradford, are at Stage 4 by the time they are diagnosed, and therefore not curable. Her cancer has spread to her brain, her liver and her bones.
Ottawa is home to a lung cancer screening pilot project, one of several locations in Ontario. Right now, it is limited to people who are high risk, including having a smoking history. There is still a way to go to develop screening that is safe and accurate enough to be widely used, said Wheatley-Price.
“The real hope over time is that this could save thousands of lives.”
In addition, there are new treatment options that were never available before. Bradford has a rare subtype of lung cancer, ALK-positive, for which there are several targeted therapies available.
She received radiation therapy in the early weeks after her diagnosis, but since then has been taking targeted oral therapy, which means no chemotherapy.
The first drug was difficult. It made Bradford extremely nauseous and she could barely eat. Now she is on a second drug, Alectinib, which is easier for her to tolerate and is making a difference. According to her last scan, all of her tumours have shrunk since she began taking the targeted therapy. She is waiting anxiously for the results of her next scan.
Bradford is in touch with others, like her, who have lung cancer, including younger women who have never smoked. The drugs she has been given as treatment are expensive — it costs $14,000 a month for the current therapy — but she is being offered it for free on a compassionate basis.
Friends and family have hosted a number of fundraising events for Bradford and her partner, Jordan MacWilliam, in Kanata and have a gofundme campaign through Facebook at Kayla’s Fight Club. That money will be used if Bradford has to travel to the U.S. for further treatment.
Meanwhile, the young mother, is enjoying every moment she can with her baby and looking forward to many more.
“I have a lot of motivation. I want to see him grow up. I believe in the power of staying positive and having a positive attitude.”
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
The 26-year-old mother from Kanata, who had been suffering worrisome symptoms, from a persistent cough to weight loss and exhaustion, had driven herself to the hospital, leaving her fiancé at home with their two-month-old son.
“I guess I don’t know what I was expecting. I expected to get a scan and leave. Cancer was never on my mind.”
When a doctor came in and asked if she was alone, advising she should call someone, she knew the news was not going to be good.
When it came, she was in shock. The scans identified spots on her lung and brain that turned out to be advanced lung cancer. She was a young woman who had never smoked and she had lung cancer.
“The first thing that went through my mind was my son. I have a two-month-old baby. I need to see him grow up. This can’t be happening to me.”
That was in January. Ten months later, Bradford’s son Leighton is now a year old, and she has become a veteran of the cancer wars and an advocate for more attention to and compassion for the disease.
Each year, 20,000 Canadians die from lung cancer. That is more than breast cancer, colorectal cancer and prostate cancer combined. Although it is responsible for more than 25 per cent of cancer deaths, lung cancer researchers receive only about six per cent of research dollars targeted at specific cancers, according to Lung Cancer Canada.
What is more, according to a recent survey, 20 per cent of Canadians admit to having less sympathy for those with lung cancer than with other kinds of cancers. And that public sympathy factor, according to the survey, has fallen in the past decade.
Bradford is among about 15 per cent of lung cancer patients who never smoked, something she feels she has to tell people when they learn she has lung cancer, because of the stigma around the disease.
Ottawa oncologist Dr. Paul Wheatley-Price, who is president of Lung Cancer Canada, said the thinking around lung cancer has to change — both for patients who were smokers and for those who have never smoked.
“We struggle with advocacy and raising awareness for lung cancer, because it is widely perceived that they deserve it. There is a stigma,” said Wheatley-Price. “We would argue that it doesn’t really matter if you smoked or worked hard to quit smoking or are someone like Kayla who never smoked. If you pass away you will be equally mourned by your family and you are equally deserving of the best treatments.”
Wheatley-Price said he is beginning to see a change in awareness from the days when it was difficult to do any public fundraising. Bradford spoke at major fundraising events for lung cancer — called An Evening of Hope — in Ottawa and Toronto during November, which is lung cancer awareness month.
“I feel like I am making a difference,” she said.
The cure rate for lung cancer remains dismal compared with some other cancers — 17 per cent of lung cancer patients are alive five years after their diagnosis, compared with 87 per cent of breast cancer patients and 95 per cent of prostate cancer patients.
But there is hope that things are beginning to change.
A major change for lung cancer results would be if patients were diagnosed earlier. Currently, most patients have advanced cancer, and many, like Bradford, are at Stage 4 by the time they are diagnosed, and therefore not curable. Her cancer has spread to her brain, her liver and her bones.
Ottawa is home to a lung cancer screening pilot project, one of several locations in Ontario. Right now, it is limited to people who are high risk, including having a smoking history. There is still a way to go to develop screening that is safe and accurate enough to be widely used, said Wheatley-Price.
“The real hope over time is that this could save thousands of lives.”
In addition, there are new treatment options that were never available before. Bradford has a rare subtype of lung cancer, ALK-positive, for which there are several targeted therapies available.
She received radiation therapy in the early weeks after her diagnosis, but since then has been taking targeted oral therapy, which means no chemotherapy.
The first drug was difficult. It made Bradford extremely nauseous and she could barely eat. Now she is on a second drug, Alectinib, which is easier for her to tolerate and is making a difference. According to her last scan, all of her tumours have shrunk since she began taking the targeted therapy. She is waiting anxiously for the results of her next scan.
Bradford is in touch with others, like her, who have lung cancer, including younger women who have never smoked. The drugs she has been given as treatment are expensive — it costs $14,000 a month for the current therapy — but she is being offered it for free on a compassionate basis.
Friends and family have hosted a number of fundraising events for Bradford and her partner, Jordan MacWilliam, in Kanata and have a gofundme campaign through Facebook at Kayla’s Fight Club. That money will be used if Bradford has to travel to the U.S. for further treatment.
Meanwhile, the young mother, is enjoying every moment she can with her baby and looking forward to many more.
“I have a lot of motivation. I want to see him grow up. I believe in the power of staying positive and having a positive attitude.”
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
