Edinburgh woman battling Stage 4 cancer hopes to 'get rid of it once and for all' with specialised treatment
An Edinburgh woman battling Stage 4 cancer is hoping to “get rid of it once and for all” with specialised treatment.
Ciara O'Brien was diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2020, with doctors having delivered the blow that conventional treatment would not save her life.
In the last six years, the Inverleith resident has taken matters into her own hands, researching available treatments for people with advanced cancer and finding a path to help her live longer with the disease – an approach that over the last two years has proved to be successful.
But the treatments, which include a range of comprehensive private tests, specialised supplements. and receiving tailored care abroad, come at a huge cost - with the 39-year-old spending hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds a month.
Speaking to the Evening News, Ciara said: “I’ve never accepted the notion of ‘oh there's nothing that can be done’, and when I started looking further and seeing what treatments other people are doing and reading books about people with stage four cancer who have had clear scans for years.
“I learned that so long as it's in a dormant place, and you're on top of it, you can live with it at a very long time like any other illness. But it does take that monitoring and a level of discipline in your life because cancer can change very quickly.
“I will always have stage four cancer but I’m aiming to get to ’no evidence of disease’ (NED) and then hold it there. Because if the cancer has no path and everything under control, you're in a much better position to treat it.
“I want to try get rid of it once and for all, and I was fortunate to be able to get amazing treatment in India using some money that I had raised before, and that has really helped.
“I had an in-depth blood test and doctors were then able to work out a three-month plan using metabolic drugs, supplements and identify what chemo was going to react with my cancer.”
Ciara said the holistic approach to treat her disease has had a huge impact, with her original tumour having been removed last year. But the cancer then spread to Ciara’s sternum which, if left untreated, will spread further.
She said: “They were really looking at the whole picture of cancer, not just one side of things. And by the end of that trip, although it was quite rough, we got the cancer down to the size of a 20p coin and they were able to operate on it.
“It's just that bit on the sternum, that’s the last niggling point. After all these treatments my cancer is now at its weakest and I’m in a much better place. And once I get to NED, there is a vaccine that's going to be available that will really help prevent my cancer from reoccurring. But obviously, again, it's a private thing and it's expensive, so that's what all this fundraising is going to be going towards.
“It is a bit of a scary place to be to be honest, but I’m not going to let fear get to me. It's a now a matter of just buckling down trying to raise the money. But I’m going to stay positive because I’m so lucky to have received the treatment I’ve had. But of course, money is always is going to be an issue, and this fund will allow me to keep monitoring the cancer and staying on top of it.”
You can donate to Ciara’s fundraiser by visiting the GoFundMe website.