My Journey - Placental Trophoblastic Disease.

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Hi my name is Melody. I am now 46 and the mum to two beautiful children (6 and 10) in September 2012 I was diagnosed a rare cancer called placental site trophoblastic disease. Little did I know what a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual journey I was about to go on.

The cancer was diagnosed after experiencing a seizure affecting the left hand side of my body and a trip to A&E revealed metastatic cancer in my brain, liver, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and uterus. Stage IV. I was put on to emergency chemotherapy and then a group of drugs called EMA/Co, but switched to EMA/EP which I tolerated better. By February 2013 I was in remission, but sadly in the October a lump was found on my first top rib. High dose chemo and double stem cell transplant was the next approach which works for most reoccurrences, but in October 2014 hCG (tumour marker) was detect again and part of my left lung removed. But the cancer was still there, this time in the liver, 2 small spots and started a horrid 5 day treatment called GemTIP didn't work. It all happened so quickly I didn’t know what I felt, crushed, angry, sad, desperate to say the least, but somehow I knew would be here to see my babies grow-up.

My oncologist, Professor Michael Seckl at Charing Cross Hospital in London, believed a new treatment called immunotherapy could work for me a drug called Keytruda (Pembrolizumab) by Merck looked promising.
He explained the working in as much as my cancer was made up of both me and my husband’s DNA, and rightly so during pregnancy the immune system shouldn’t attack the foreign DNA, however these cells are not a during a pregnancy and we needed the immunotherapy to wake up my immune system and reject the foreign DNA.
There was a list of side effects, but so did all the other treatments and I had tolerated most of the other treatments fairly well. My body was still strong and I didn’t have any other complications; I had nothing to lose and everything to live for.
I agreed to the treatment and with the help of a charity (Harris and Trotter Charitable Trust Fund) to pay for the treatment not yet funded by the NHS. No side effects, no extra medication like anti-nausea or steroids needed and only 30min each time. After the third dose I was back in remission as of 10 June 2015!
Chemo would cure most cases with a 5% failure rate perhaps in the future they may look to using immunotherapy sooner, but there are still concerns around fertility.