At diagnosis: “When everything felt hopeless”
When Gloria Jenkinson was diagnosed with lung cancer, the outlook was bleak. Metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lung which had spread to her lymph nodes, liver, left adrenal gland, bones and brain.
And she felt ill. Very ill. So ill in fact that Gloria signed Esther Rantzen’s assisted dying petition.
However, over three years on and Gloria now has a very different opinion on the subject…
“If assisted dying had been an option to me at the beginning of my diagnosis, I honestly believed I would have thought very seriously about it.
“For the first three months, I was in and out of hospital on a regular basis and things did not look good for me in any way at all. I felt terrible and it was awful for my husband and child to witness. There were many, many times when I felt I couldn’t go on.
“However, my opinion on assisted dying has changed. I would have missed so much.
“I never imagined that my body would respond in the way that it has. Not expecting to still be alive 3 years later, and nor did the oncologist either! I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I now feel well, happy, content and very, very thankful.
“I’ve learned that no matter how bad you feel and what you are told by anyone, including the oncologist, nobody can say how your body will react and how it will fight back.
A bolt out of the blue
“My diagnosis came as the biggest shock. It was Friday 8th July, just an ordinary day. I’d just picked my son up from school and enjoyed a laugh in the playground with the other mums about the forthcoming summer holidays.
“Then around 5pm, everything changed. I felt the most excruciating pain in the whole right side of my abdomen. I screamed and doubled over in pain.
“My husband drove me to A&E but when we got there, they were so busy. There were so many ambulances waiting outside, I thought there must have been some kind of disastrous accident on the M5.
“I was about to leave but then one of the paramedics came up to me and asked if I was ok? I explained what had happened but given how busy it was, I was going to go home and hope the pain would wear off. He was very kind and persuaded me to go back into A&E. He said it could be something serious. How right he was…
“A CT scan revealed a 7.5cm tumour in my liver. It had started to bleed and this was what was causing all the pain. I saw a liver specialist the following day who was baffled as to where such a large mass had come from, particularly considering I’d had an abdominal scan 12 months earlier and there had been nothing there.
“We then found out the liver was a secondary cancer. The primary cancer was in my lung. I couldn’t really get my head around it. A few days ago, I was making plans for the future. Now all I could think about was planning my funeral and what was going to happen to my family.
The fight begins
“Due to the severity of the diagnosis, it was decided that I should start on the strongest course of treatment – two lots of chemotherapy (carboplatin and pemetrexed) along with immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) every 3 weeks for 3 months.
“This, alongside the denosumab injection I was having the bone cancer, was a big ask of my body but I made the choice to have a go, as there was no other alternative.
“Before I started my treatment, I was told to eat as many calories as possible to help with the fight. Having always had a healthy, zero sugar diet and was very active and fit but this was the beginning of my cream donut, choc-ice and crunchie bar diet! I ate tons of them, sending my husband out to the nearest supplier at all hours! I think our local shop in the village got extra crunchie bar supplies for me!
When the scans brought hope
“Treatment started on 10th September. It should have been sooner but had to be delayed because unfortunately, was too unwell. At that point, I didn’t think I was ever going to be strong enough. As I was waiting for treatment, I started to have really bad back pain. A spinal CT revealed I had fractured spine. It had started to crumble. Further scans then confirmed I had secondary bone cancer. Two small tumours were also detected on my brain MRI. I felt well and truly done for!
“Somehow, I managed to start treatment. My first three monthly scans revealed that the brain tumours had disappeared from view and all the other tumours were shrinking. The bones were also showing signs of healing.
“I was very happy with the results but I still felt very unwell. The plan was to continue with just the Pembrolizumab and Denosumab every 6 weeks for two years. Every three months, I would have a scan and each scan showed the tumours had shrunk or had remained stable. The brain tumours have – so far – disappeared.
“I had to have a break from my treatment due to toxicity in April 2024 which is apparently quite usual. I spent a few days in hospital and was treated with high dose steroids (60mg) then restarting after 12 weeks. Unfortunately, I could not tolerate the restart of the pembrolizumab and stopped four months short of the intended two years.
Adjusting to the ‘new normal’
“It’s still hard to get my head around everything that has happened. There were some very, very dark times. I remember going to a hospice and a nurse helping me fill out the “under six months to live” benefit form. No one expected that I would still be here three years later.
“Immunotherapy doesn’t work, or isn’t suitable for everyone, but for me it appears to be working wonders. Times have changed for cancer patients. Even such widespread aggressive cancer like mine is no longer an immediate death sentence.
“I might look different, feel different and think differently, but I am alive and living with incurable stage 4 metastatic lung cancer. This is what I want people to know.
“Had assisted dying been available, I could have made a terrible mistake and robbed both myself and my family of the precious time we’ve had – and hopefully the time that we will continue to have. It’s frightening, to have this diagnosis plonked on you out of the blue. It’s easy to panic and expect the worst but there is now hope. I’m living proof.”