KEY POINTS:
While most cancer patients have to endure only six months of chemotherapy, Heather Leaity has lived through nine years of it.
She was just 20 when ulcers developed on her skin and mouth - a rare condition, paraneoplastic pemphigus, often triggered by cancer. By February 1995, then 21,
she was told she had a rare form of leukaemia.
Today, at 33, she is cancer-free and intent on reclaiming the lost years she spent battling the disease.
Her specialist, Dr Peter Browett, medical director of the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation, said: "Clinically, she's gone into remission and is doing really well. It's been quite a remarkable and dramatic recovery."
Miss Leaity was referred to Dr Browett, one of the country's leading leukaemia experts, when she was diagnosed.
"He didn't know where to start as far as treating me. I didn't fit into a nice little box, as he put it," she said.
She asked him how long she had to live. "And he goes, 'Why do you have to go and ask that for?"'
He hesitated because of the rarity of her condition.
"He took a stab and guessed five years but said, 'If you come into my office in 10 years' time and say, "Hey Peter, you got that wrong," I would love it.' So I did."
But it has been difficult. A matching bone marrow donor could not be found and chemotherapy, rather than eradicating the cancer, simply slowed it down.
Then she was confined to a wheelchair for several years because the ulcers made her feet so sore.
"There were times when I wondered why I was here. But I decided, no, I'm not going to die, I'm going to live."
Then the leukaemia drug Glivec appeared - but she was told it would not help.
"I decided I was not going to let that get the better of me."
Dr Browett, meanwhile, had been researching genetic changes in leukaemia cells.
"Although Glivec was designed specifically to switch off the gene in chronic myeloid leukaemia, it also works on some other abnormal genes," he said.
"We found one of those abnormal genes in her leukaemia."
He then fought for Miss Leaity to get special Government funding for the drug.
Dr Browett was able to deliver the good news in November 2003 and she started Glivec in February the following year.
By October, she was in remission.
Miss Leaity, who works part-time as an administrator at a Henderson school, plans to return to fulltime work next year, putting to use the degree in commerce that she completed while in her first year of chemotherapy.
"I look back and I think of it as a hurdle in life," said Miss Leaity, "as a challenge I've met."
$70,000 donated by readers
The generosity of Herald readers has resulted in more than $70,000 being raised during the paper's Christmas campaign for cancer research.
Yesterday, $72,970 had come into the Auckland Cancer Society and more is expected in the next few weeks.
The society's own end-of-year postal appeal has yielded more than $100,000 - more than double last year's amount - thanks to Herald publicity.
In the past month, the Herald has run stories highlighting the society's work in helping thousands of patients and their families. The society also funds leading-edge cancer research.
Chief executive John Loof thanked donors for their generosity. "Fifty years ago, the New Zealand Herald helped the Cancer Society do something extraordinary for the people of our region," he said.
"A joint public appeal was held to fund the purchase of a radiation therapy machine for Auckland Hospital.
"Overwhelming public support meant that not only was the machine purchased but surplus money was used by the society to set up a medical research unit to investigate the causes and treatments of cancer.
He said the public had shown, by their continuing financial support over the past 50 years, their enormous faith in the process and an unwavering conviction.
"Their trust in our organisation has been honoured by our staff, who have dedicated themselves to this work.
"They have provided a return on that investment so future generations may just have the opportunity to free themselves of the depredation of this disease and whose health outcomes will be improved by the society's work in the next 50 years."
