Title : Bristol mother-of-three receives a Christmas miracle
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Bristol mother-of-three receives a Christmas miracle
- Heidi Loughlin, of Bristol, was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer in 2015
- She was told she had the disease while pregnant and refused chemotherapy
- Doctors told her last her cancer was terminal and gave her four years to live
- But her latest scan has shown her body to be currently free of the disease
A mother diagnosed with terminal cancer has been given a Christmas miracle after being told she is now free of the disease after taking a revolutionary cancer drug.
Heidi Loughlin, 35, said the world is her oyster after Kadcyla - considered the biggest breakthrough for sufferers in the last decade - helped her defy her death sentence.
Doctors warned she had just four years left to live last September, when her rare and aggressive inflammatory breast cancer worsened.
Ms Loughlin, from Bristol, described her ordeal as being like 'swimming in the wake of a ship wreck' and 'fighting an impossible battle'.
But this week, in an incredible turn of events, Ms Loughlin's latest scan has shown her body to be currently free of the disease - believed to be because of Kadcyla.
The drug was approved by Nice, the NHS' drug rationing watchdog, earlier this year for thousands of women who suffer from a rare, aggressive breast cancer.
Heidi Loughlin, 35, said the world is her oyster after a revolutionary breast cancer drug helped her defy her death sentence (pictured with her sons Noah, 4, and Tait, 3)
Ms Loughlin first noticed something was wrong when she was breastfeeding youngest son Tait (pictured together) in February 2015, and noticed a rash
Ms Loughlin, who has also undergone chemotherapy to rid her of her disease, has said she is 'so grateful' for the precious time she has been given back to spend with her sons and her partner Keith.
She said: 'Knowing what it feels like to say goodbye, the thought of having to go through that again is absolutely unbearable.
'I can dare to dream that I'll be here for a really long time. I'm only 35, I feel great. The world's my oyster now.'
On her blog, called Storm in a Tit Cup, she wrote: 'Kadcyla is the drug that is keeping me alive.
It is currently stopping my cancer from spreading any further within my body. It gives me a relatively conventional life. It buys the average patient an extra 9 months of life.
She was three months' pregnant when she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive inflammatory breast cancer in 2015.
She refused chemotherapy and ignored doctor's recommendations at the time to have an abortion in order to give her baby a fighting chance.
Baby Ally Louise Smith was born 12 weeks early via c-section on December 12, 2015 - sadly she passed away just eight days later after developing an infection.
Ms Loughlin, who is also mother to Noah, 4, and Tait, 3, was told in September 2016 that her cancer was terminal.
Ms Loughlin first noticed something was wrong when she was breastfeeding youngest son Tait in February 2015, and noticed a rash.
Doctors warned she had just four years left to live last September, when her rare and aggressive inflammatory breast cancer worsened
Ms Loughlin, from Bristol, described her ordeal as being like 'swimming in the wake of a ship wreck' and 'fighting an impossible battle'
She refused chemotherapy and ignored doctor's recommendations at the time to have an abortion in order to give her baby a fighting chance. Baby Ally Louise Smith was born 12 weeks early via c-section but passed away just eight days later after developing an infection
But this week, in an incredible turn of events, Ms Loughlin's latest scan has shown her body to be currently free of the disease - believed to be because of Kadcyla
Ms Loughlin, who has also undergone chemotherapy to rid her of her disease, has said she is 'so grateful' for the precious time she has been given back to spend with her sons
But doctors said she had mastitis - a common condition for new mothers where breast tissue becomes painful and inflamed.
She thought nothing more of it, and was overjoyed to learn she had fallen pregnant with her third child months later.
But in September she was left devastated when tests revealed she had inflammatory breast cancer, a rare form of the disease with a typical prognosis of two to five years.
And a year later, in September 2016, she was dealt a further blow when she was told she had four years to live.
Ms Loughlin, who had been documenting her cancer journey on her blog throughout this time, began compiling a bucket list of things to do before she died.
These included a Christmas trip to Disneyland Paris, road trips across Australia and the USA, getting married, and living to see her sons start primary school, secondary school and university.
And now that she is cancer-free, she still plans to throw herself into life as much as possible - as doctors suspect her cancer may eventually become active again.
She said: 'Next year that's going to be my main aim, I'm going to start thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.
'A lot of people are terrified to do that, because they think it will come back to get them.
'But actually it doesn't change - whether I spend the entire time terrified and wasting time on feeling terrible about what might happen to me, or I spend the entire time embracing the time that I've got.'
Ms Loughlin has won a legion of fans online for her up-front and brutally honest blog, called Storm in a Tit Cup, about the disease.
She has also been ticking items off her bucket list - including marrying her fiancé in February and taking a road trip across America in May.
Her blog can be found here: http://ift.tt/1Qq8Bbp.
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