Robyn MacDonald was on her way home after a night out with friends in Hong Kong when she suddenly collapsed. Unable to get back on her feet, she crawled to a taxi.
A successful marketing consultant and business coach, Robyn had been ignoring the signs that something was wrong. She’d had a sore back and was coughing a lot but thought it was simply a common cold. In fact, her worst fears were realised when she was told the breast cancer she’d had seven years prior had returned – and it was terminal. The cancer had metastasised in her spine, pelvis, a lung and a kidney.
“It was growing everywhere, so I packed up my life in Hong Kong and flew home to Christchurch,” says the 59-year-old. “I was told I had an outside chance of living for two years or it could be three months, but I said, ‘No, that’s not my story’.”
Five years later, Robyn says she’s “living well with cancer”. After a series of traditional treatments and what she calls “integrative” therapies “treating the inflammation, my diet and mental health” – those metastatic tumours have either shrunk or completely disappeared.
Now she’s facing a new challenge – a lump has appeared on her jaw in the past few months and tumours on her spine are progressively affecting her mobility.
Running out of funded treatment options in New Zealand, Robyn is now paying for a new drug, Enhertu, to be sent from Australia – at $23,000 a dose.
“It’s an eyewatering amount of money and a terrifying decision to make, but I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t a game- changer,” says Robyn. “This is not just another cancer drug – it’s exceptional. It’s a leap of faith for me, but I have to give it a go. I’m a fighter.”
She’s battling to be around for her 24-year-old son Isaac. “He’s my everything,” she shares.
Robyn is certain her cancer story began when she lost both her home and business in the devastating Christchurch earthquake of 2011.
After growing up on a Southland high-country farm, she became a physiotherapist, working in the industry on her OE before setting up physio clinics in Christchurch. She changed career after Isaac was born.
“I wanted more flexibility, so I moved into marketing,” she says. “It’s taken me all over the world – mainland China, Hong Kong, Italy and Australia.
“I miss physio and it’s served me well on this cancer journey. Knowing how the medical system works really helps.”
This dedicated mum is determined to survive for the sake of her only son.
Robyn was at home in the suburb of St Martins in the Port Hills when the 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck in February 2011. It left her house completely uninhabitable and her office in the CBD destroyed, upending her world.
Seven months later, Robyn was showering when she found a lump in her breast. It was stage-three breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.
“The extreme stress of the earthquake is what I think triggered it,” she reveals.
After having a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radio-therapy, “I went and lived in a garden shed in Wānaka – I retreated from life because I needed to heal myself. Then I resurrected my business in Hong Kong for a few years and lived a normal life. I forgot I’d had breast cancer.”
That was until she collapsed, was coughing blood and came home to an unknown future.
Earlier this year, after her third line of drug treatment for stage-four cancer, Robyn was told by her oncologist there were “little to no” funded drug options left to help her.
“This was the rabbit hole I didn’t know about,” she says.
“I had no idea we had fewer drug options here than there are in Australia.”
So Robyn researched, and discovered Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan), a new drug proven to help those with advanced HER2+ and HER2-low breast cancer, an aggressive, fast-spreading form of the disease.
“I’m in a Facebook group with about 3000 women on this drug and many say they’ve had 50 to 70% shrinkage of their tumours,” says Robyn. “Many were on the clinical trial for Enhertu and are leading normal lives; some have no evidence of disease.”
Robyn received her first dose of Enhertu intravenously.
The immense cost of each dose was something Robyn, who’s no longer working full-time, struggled to afford, so her son’s partner Brianna suggested they start a Givealittle campaign.
“I’m a proud businesswoman and hate asking for money, but I had to find it somehow,” says Robyn. “It was either I die slowly or I do this.”
Fundraising has meant Robyn has had her first dose of Enhertu and there’s now an appeal to help her get a second. “This drug is a gift from God,” she says. “It’s revolutionary for cancer and Pharmac should be funding it.”
Isaac has moved back in with his mum to help her, which Robyn is grateful for. She lost her mother to cancer when she in her early thirties.
“I’m a mother first and my number-one driver is to be here for my son,” she says. “I’ve got to be around for another 10 years – he needs me.”
If you’d like to donate, search Robyn MacDonald on givealittle.co.nz.
