It was life changing, It was the worst day of our life. The worst news you could ever
hear. we were shocked. He was a healthy guy, he was never the one who would get sick, he
took care of his health, he never smoked . We were just in shock. It was a horrible day.
In 2017, 44-year-old Jason had a cough that wouldn't go away. A couple of months later
he collapsed at home and ended up in hospital, diagnosed with pneumonia.
Not long afterwards, Doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 lung cancer.
He was given 10 months to live but his oncologist said it could likely be 8 weeks due to other
complications that had developed.
The treatment he was on was Chemotherapy. So he started on the chemotherapy drugs.
Did it make a difference? No, not in my eyes, that's not what I saw,
the tumours got bigger, they continued to grow, the coughing continued.
He was very low on energy, short of breath, basically on the couch coughing.
We started to do our own research about this drug keytruda, and in one of our meetings
with the Oncologist , he had a team of oncologists, we asked them, what about keytruda? Can Jason
have keytruda, and they said yeah he can.
And I asked the Doctor, well how do we get it? And he said, I will prescribe it, but
they seemed a bit reluctant about it and then he explained tat it's the cost associated
with the drug, about $13,000 every three weeks.
I was shocked that we hadn't been told about it and I was shocked that we had to pay so
much for this life changing drug. But at the same time we wanted to do everything we could
to, I wanted to do everything i could to help my husband and improve his quality of life
it was terrible to watch him just dying on the couch.
Patricia and Jason used their savings and family and friends started a givealittle page
to raise $70,000 to fund Jason's Keytruda treatment.
She says the difference when Jason was on Keytruda was stark.
Keytruda made a huge difference to prolonging his life and the quality of his life, it basically
got him off the couch, it stopped the breathlessness, he wasn't coughing all the time, he was more
normal, he was able to in his words 'it got me off the couch I was able to get up and
go out with family and with the children." It really improved his quality of life. It
was amazing. How long did it prolong his life?
We were initially given 10 months but our oncologist also said with the complications
he had it could have been all over in 8 weeks, but the Keytruda,.he started late because
of the complications of his treatment but it gave him about 6 months of really good
quality of life and he lived 11 months.
It was worth it.
So moving forward, a year on for his passing, what's life been like for you and the kids?
It's been really tough without him, its been really hard for all of us. he was our rock,
he was the head of our family
Its just been really hard, really difficult actually. living without him here but my children
have been really courageous and we know how hard he fought for his life and that helps
us get up everyday and keep going.
So tomorrow you'll be handing over this petition, on the steps of parliament....what do you
think Jason would think if he was here?
Jason would be really proud of us. He was behind this from the beginning, he initiated
it along with my sister in law and Phillip and a friend, so yeah he'd be so proud of
us
He was a selfless person, he loved everyone regardless of how they were towards him. He
was a very selfless person and caring and kind and thought of others and what other
might be going through, especially with lung cancer after our experience and his experience.
Not only dealing with the diagnosis of a terminal illness but you also have the financial burden
of having to pay for the best drugs that are available to you and he wanted everyone to
have access to that. We were very lucky that we were able to buy these drugs some people
won't be able to do that.