Queenstown’s Jana Macpherson’s in little doubt the private healthcare system has saved her husband’s life — or at least, given him more time with his family.
A year ago her husband Hamish, 49, Liquorland Five Mile’s manager and a wedding celebrant, had a melanoma lump in his neck removed.
But on January 1 this year, his health started to nosedive.
Constantly tired, feeling generally unwell and continually burping, Hamish says his stomach was bigger, despite having stopped drinking alcohol.
Then, in February, during a routine scan in Queenstown, doctors ‘‘quick-smart said, ‘we need to send you to Christchurch’’’.
The father of two says on February 24 he received a letter informing him the cancer had metastasised and was now in his liver and stomach, and he needed to see an oncologist.
The letter, Jana says, “wasn’t pretty reading”.
On February 27, Dunedin Hospital’s Ear, Nose and Throat department said it was no longer their department, but he’d have an appointment with an oncologist in ‘‘one to two weeks’’.
‘‘That proved to be seriously incorrect.’’
Jana, a food blogger, called the oncology department a week later, conscious the family needed to move quickly, to be told the wait time at Dunedin Hospital was five-to-seven weeks.
Friends then encouraged the couple to go private — after which a subsequent scan showed the cancer was also in his brain.
‘‘If we’d waited on the public system, we would have been waiting till about 10 days ago,’’ she says.
Hamish: ‘‘I don’t think I would have been around at that point.’’
Last month, he spent 19 days in Lakes District Hospital — for the first 10, he says, ‘‘I was on the way out’’.
Guardian angel: Hunter Macpherson, 8, keeps watch over his dad, Hamish, during a recent 19-day stay at Lakes District Hospital
However, after trying an unfunded medication — with a 35% chance of success — the improvement was almost immediate.
Nine days later, he says, ‘‘I was on the way out the door, not in a box, but walking out of my own accord’’.
He’s dubbed the meds — Dabrafenib and Trametinib — ‘‘magic pills, because they’re unpronounceable”.
They cost $5500 a month and are killing the cancer cells.
He’ll stay on them for the next four-to-eight months, after which it’ll cost $50,000 for a double dose of immunotherapy, provided he’s well enough, one dose of which isn’t funded.
Despite the horror of the past few months, they consider themselves lucky.
A Givealittle page — bit.ly/3AN7mPf — has so far raised over $132,000 of the family’s $210,000 goal.
They’re blown away by the support from the community, and strangers, who’ve even dropped off toys for their children Hunter, 8, and River, 6.
Along with medical treatment, the money will also help with their mortgage and bills.
‘‘We’re in a position where we’ve been able to have friends fundraising for us, which is amazing, but there are other people that honestly will be dying without this medication,’’ Jana says.
“This medication has saved Hamish’s life, or at least given him more time to live, and spend time with us.”
Hamish: “For it to make such a remarkable difference – to be bed-ridden, [then to] sit up and go to the toilet by myself, for me, it was quite a liberating change.”
Hamish is now looking for ward to a sense of normality, and hoping to return to work ‘‘in some capacity’’ when he can.
‘‘I realise it’s quite challenging to reset your dial … if I get tired I’ve got to stop and go to bed, that’s a different mentality for me to comprehend.
‘‘But if I’m going to win, that’s what I’ve got to do.’’
And, if his health continues to improve, he wants to fight to get the ‘‘magic pills’ even partially-funded, to help others who find themselves in a similar position.
