A mother of three from Beauce, condemned by aggressive breast cancer at only 33 years old, is “looking for a miracle” to save her life.
“I have nothing left to lose, but not a minute to lose,” confides Émilie Roy, from Saint-Elzéar, who has been battling triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive, for a year.
Despite three rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, radiation and immunotherapy treatments, the cancer is still taking over. She now has metastases in her lungs, making it difficult for her to breathe.
She had just given birth to her third child when she discovered a lump in her breast nearly two years ago. Doctors initially thought it was trapped milk, but tests soon revealed the worst.
“I’ve done everything,” laments Émilie Roy about the treatments she’s been undergoing for months. “But each time, the cancer takes over again.”
Palliative care
Last week, the axe fell: all he would be left with would be palliative care.
“I don’t want to believe it […]”I’m sad, I’m angry,” she said, stifling a sob. “Not for me, but for my children. They’re too young,” she sighed.
Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
Her heart breaks at the thought of not seeing Zack, 6, Meghane, 5, and Félix, 2, grow up.
But Émilie Roy clings to the hope of an experimental treatment. She knows that there are new drugs, but they are not yet approved, and various clinical trials.
“No matter if there are side effects or risks, I’m still going to die,” she says.
The ball is in the court of her oncologist at the CHU de Québec, she says, crossing her fingers.
• Also read: ‘I’m ready to fight’: She hopes breast cancer clinical trial treatment will be more accessible
More and more
“It remains the minority […]but there is an increase in the incidence of breast cancer in young women under 40 years old,” notes the oncologist surgeon at the CHUM, Dr.r Rami Younan.
Also a member of the scientific committee of the McPeak-Sirois Group, an organization engaged in clinical research on breast cancer, he emphasizes that cancers in younger people are also more aggressive.
Despite innovative protocols in progress and giant steps taken in recent years, the needs remain enormous, agrees the specialist, who sometimes comes up against cancers that he is unable to eradicate.
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