Donna Burns' cancer diagnosis prompts fight for life-saving drug

Donna Burns still needs $12,000 for a life-prolonging drug. Photo / Stephen Parker

"Are you going to die, mum?" Donna Burns' usually quiet 14-year-old daughter asks.

"I'm not going to die today and I'm not going to die tomorrow," Burns tells her teenager.

The response has replaced the "of course not" she dismissed the question with in the past.

Burns has battled cancer three times in the past 10 years. Her daughters were only 2 and 4 when she was first diagnosed.

Her last chance at a cure - a stem cell transplant in 2017 - failed and she now needs $30,000 over two years for the maintenance drug, rituximab, to prolong her life.

When the Rotorua Daily Post first spoke to Burns in August, she had just set up a Givealittle page to fund the drug and said the family caravan would likely be sold and her retirement fund dipped into to afford the drug. Since August, she has been blown away by the $18,000 raised - just over $15,000 from a Givealittle page and the rest donated by friends, family and school fundraising.

Her goal was it to make it to her daughters' 21st birthdays.

Her 10-year battle began when a lump on the side of her body was diagnosed as stage three Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, slow-growing cancer which had already progressed to her neck, under her arms, front and back of her stomach, her heart and her groin.

Treatment saw her go into remission for five years before cancer returned in 2016. Her kidneys had failed and she spent two months in intensive care at Waikato Hospital on dialysis followed by a year of self-dialysis.

In 2017, she had a stem-cell transplant.

"It took me six months to recover from that but it went very well and we thought I was cured. We had a scan and there was nothing left at all," she said.

But it did not work.

There were no other options for a cure given the high risk of other treatments killing her.

"This time is harder."

Harder for her daughters who understand what cancer is, harder on her husband and marriage as they look at money differently, and harder on her as she comes to terms with the prognosis.

The battle now is for extra time.

She finished her final chemotherapy in October. It did not make her hair fall out but made her body break out in excruciating hives. Exfoliating gloves and lotions were her only relief.

She needed to start maintenance treatment in November and would get the drug rituximab every three months.

"The worst thing is the rituximab they want to give me in this maintenance period is stuff that I've had," she said.

But only six sessions are funded.

"It's not like it's not available in New Zealand," she said.

In August, Burns was unsure of how she would fund it, thinking she would have to sell the family caravan they bought after her first diagnosis to create family memories.

But the Givealittle page has so far raised just over $15,000.

Glenholme School, where she works, raised $1000 from mufti days and a parent ran a jewellery making class which raised another $650.

Strangers from Auckland donated and loved ones put money straight into her account, including friends from school she had not seen in years.

"In a world that can be so s*** ... there are so many good people out there," she said.

She now has about $18,000 and the extra $12,000 could mean making it to her daughters' 21st birthdays.

The donations also mean the family will not have to sell their caravan, permanently parked at Thornton Beach.

For now, the caravan will stay in place and the family will get as much out of it as they can.

The Givealittle page is still open.

Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma
- Starts in white blood cells called lymphocytes, which are part of the body's immune system.

- Affects the body's lymph system, part of the immune system.