Cancer stricken mum-of-three given months to live says her tumours are disappearing after she funded experimental immunotherapy treatment
Liz Sheppard asked for public donations for her treatment, saying her 'golf ball-sized' tumours have started to shrink
A MUM given just 12 months to live has revealed her determination to fight the diagnosis for her three young girls.
Liz Sheppard, 36, was told she had terminal small cell stomach cancer - a condition so rare that little is known about about how to tackle the disease - but has since continued to fight against the odds by embracing a form of treatment not funded by the NHS.
The determined mum said she had turned to the experimental immunotherapy after being told by doctors there was nothing more they could do for her.
Although admitting she was essentially "experimenting" on her body, she told The Sun Online: "I had been given up to 12 months life expectancy.
"When you are presented with something like that you don't have anything to lose."
She said although it had been difficult going through various treatments, including intensive rounds of chemotherapy, she was driven by her children - four-year-old Olivia, four, Grace, nine, and Georgia, 15.
The Nottinghamshire mum said: "I'm a mother, I can't give up.
"Even when I've been at my lowest point, I've known I can't give up."
Since undergoing six rounds of treatment of immunotherapy since November last year, she has seen the tumour on her neck, which was the size of a golfball, disappear.
But with the treatment unfunded by the NHS for her form of cancer, Liz has now turned to to raise further funds to continue the treatment, which costs £5,000 per session.
She said: "Thousands of people have got a rare cancer and we are told 'there's very little hope' and you're expected to take what you are being told and to accept it and die - to go away and suck it up.
"It's not fair."
When you are presented with something like that you don't have anything to lose
Liz Sheppard
She said she hoped that the NHS would one day open up funding for further cancer treatments, saying: "Even if this proves fruitless for me, in the future it could change somebody else's life.
"I hope whole-heartedly that this works for me, but none of us have a crystal ball."
She said she wouldn't have been able to continue raising money and awareness for cancer without the support of her husband Damien and her friends.
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The Nottinghamshire mum's doctors have admitted that Mrs Sheppard was "weeks or short months" away from death.
But after starting the treatment of Nivolumab in November last year, doctors have said her improvement has been remarkable.
Jane Lynch, senior lung clinical nurse specialist and respiratory service at the private Leaders in Oncology Care, said: "You could see the tumour was growing on her neck and she was really unwell with it; she could barely get out of the chair.
"She had nothing to lose and everything to gain."
The 36-year-old received the devastating diagnosis in November 2015, with her first impulse to think of the impact it would have on her family.
She remained hopeful after the tumour in her stomach was discovered to have shrunk but was last year given the news that her cancer was terminal.
She said: “I am now classed as terminal and according to statistics I have a one-year life expectancy.
“When I first out I had cancer I was devastated and just kept repeating ‘what about my girls?’
“I realised I was never going to have a cure but hoped I could expand my life expectancy. “
WHAT IS IMMUNOTHERAPY?
The pioneering new treatment is arguably the most promising breakthroughs in cancer therapies since the development of chemotherapies in the 1940s.
The treatment "wakes up" a patient's own immune system, to help it fight cancer.
This can be done in several ways.
One form of immunotherapy stimulates the body's own immune system to work harder, to attack cancer cells.
While, another route, gives the immune system a man-made boost from specific proteins, to spark it into action.
How does the immune system work?
The body's immune system is our defence barrier, protecting us from diseases including cancer.
In a healthy person, the immune system spots and destroys faulty cells.
But, in some cases, these cells can escape detection, and develop into tumours.
How does immunotherapy work?
A relatively new treatment, immunotherapy works by re-awakening the immune system.
By doing so, it helps the body fight the disease from within.
Scientists believe the benefits go further still.
They believe by engaging the immune system, it can be possible to make the body "remember" the cancer, preventing it returning.
Will immunotherapy work for all cancers?
Immunotherapy works better for some types of cancer than others.
There are currently clinical trials ongoing to assess the effectiveness of the treatment for patients with - among others - these cancers:
- bladder
- prostate
- bowel
- breast
- ovarian
- lung
- melanoma
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Liz, who works as a clinical typist for King’s Mill Hospital, near near home in Mansfield, Notts, has launched a fundraising appeal and events are being staged at various locations across the country.
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