Two men walked three marathons in three days to raise money for an expensive drug that could treat their friend’s incurable breast cancer.
Leanne Hughes, 39, went to see her GP about a lump in her breast in 2016 only to be told there was ‘nothing to worry about’.
Two years later she was diagnosed with stage four incurable breast cancer – but by the time it was found the disease had already spread to her bones and liver.
After years of treatment a tumour was found in Leanne’s brain last August. The cancer in her lungs was also found to have progressed.
She has found a drug, Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan), that can help treat her cancer, but it costs £10,000 per cycle.
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Leanne told Metro: ‘It could give me the chance to pull this cancer back so I get a chance to be myself again and have a much better quality of life.’
Determined to raise money for the treatment, her friends Anthony Rudolph and Pete Tiarny, both 41, walked from London to Brighton between October 3 and October 5.
They have since raised £3,725.
Anthony, who met Leanne as a colleague at White Stuff in 2015, said: ‘Leanne is incredibly passionate as a person.
‘She is very driven, even before the diagnosis, she often spoke of all the incredible plans she had for her life.
What is Enhertu?
Enhurtu is a brand name for trastuzumab deruxtecan and is used to treat HER2-positive breast cancer that is metastatic – which means cancer that has spread from its original location to a new, distant part of the body.
According to the European Medicines Agency, Enhurtu is given by infusion (drip) into a vein over 90 minutes once every three weeks.
Patients who tolerate the first 90‑minute infusion can receive subsequent treatments of more than 30 minutes.
Trastuzumab activates cells of the immune system which kill the cancer cells while deruxtecan becomes active once trastuzumab has attached to HER2 and enters the cancer cell.
It kills the cancer cell by blocking an enzyme (protein) called topoisomerase I, which is involved in making new cancer cells.
But Enhurtu is expensive due to its complex production and high research and development costs.
Last year the Department for Health and Social Care said the drug is not recommended on the NHS due to ‘unreasonable and unaffordable pricing’.
‘She was a big dreamer and continues to be a dreamer even through the diagnosis and that is one of the things I find really compelling [about her] and why I wanted to help her.
‘Another reason is, even through all [she’s been through], Leanne still looks past that and says “no, I’m going to plan and dream as if I have all the time in the world.”’
Since diagnosis, Leanne has had monthly hormone blocking – which put her in menopause – and bone strengthening injections.
She has tried seven systemic treatments between targeted therapies and different chemotherapies, three courses of radiotherapy, a mastectomy and countless medications in addition.
Last August cancer was found in Leanne’s brain, so she began whole brain therapy followed quickly by spinal radiotherapy and new chemotherapy.
The cancer in her lungs was also found to have progressed.
She had to have three litres of fluid drained from one lung and suffered a seizure due to the brain tumour.
Leanne said: ‘I’m not a candidate for more whole brain radiotherapy and the limited chemo option that might be available for me do not reach the brain so my brain will remain untreated if I don’t start Enhertu.
‘Besides that, Enhertu is a really successful treatment that has shown great long-term results for people – and because it is more targeted, it will help limit more damage to the rest of my already damaged body.’
Originally Anthony planned to climb Kilimanjaro but was ‘worried about time’ for Leanne – and wanted to help more urgently, deciding on a 76-mile trek from London to Brighton.
Anthony said he and Pete made a lot friends and even received several donations from people they met along the way – including from the staff of the first hotel they stayed in.
He said: ‘We pretty much covered every kind of terrain I could have imagined in the UK from the forests to streams, to old railway tracks, to motorways, to weird little back hedgerow paths that you don’t even realise exist.’
Before they set out, Pete had never met Leanne – but wanted to support Anthony’s fundraiser and offered to join him.
Anthony said: ‘He [Pete] was very moved by what she was going through. We met up for dinner one night and after too many margaritas he excitedly said “yeah, absolutely, I’m in, I’d love to walk to Brighton with you”.
‘I said “are you sure you’re not just drunk?”. And Pete was like “no, no, no, I totally want to do it”.
‘I was convinced the next day he was going to say “I absolutely did not agree to that.”’
But Pete texted him the next morning and said they needed to get going.
Anthony added: ‘Pete was a huge motivator in being more organised. We’re very different characters.
‘I was planning on literally just leaving my house on Friday morning, nothing booked, using probably Google Maps.
‘Pete said that was ridiculous and that we needed to actually plan how we’re getting to Brighton.’
Paying tribute to his friend’s courage, he continued: ‘I think that is something that’s an incredibly strong and apparent part of her character – her beautiful zest for life.
‘She had that already and she’s somehow managed to maintain it through some of the darkest days, especially when seeing everyone around her at a similar age.
‘Leanne’s in her late 30s and it’s hard seeing people living their lives, having families, planning families, who are planning all these incredible things for the future.
‘To maintain any sense of that when you know there’s a very strong chance you won’t get to see any of it shows her real strength of character.’
Leanne told Metro: ‘Personally my cancer diagnosis in the early years really gave me new chance at life in many ways.
‘It forced me to slow down and really start looking after myself for the first time.
‘It changed everything, and the trajectory I thought my life was on as a young 31-year-old girl living in London.
‘Becoming infertile overnight, for example, I was no longer thinking of settling down, saving for a house, but just how I was going to spend the years I have left.
‘It made me readdress a lot in my life which I’m grateful for and sent me down a path of discovering what I really want to do with my life.’
‘I didn’t expect to still be here seven-and-a-half-years later but since those early days I’ve done everything I can to keep myself healthy and well despite the cancer, and it’s only with the treatment over the past 18 months or so that my body has started to struggle to do that.’
Leanne said Anthony and Pete were ‘both so special for doing something like this for me. I can never believe it when anyone wants to do something like this on my behalf but I am so grateful for the support especially at this point when it really feels like life or death’.
She continued: ‘I’ve known Anthony for so many years now, from way before my diagnosis when we worked together, and he has been so supportive the whole way through this.
‘He’s someone I know I can always rely on and for Pete to choose to do it with him was extra special.’
Donate to Anthony’s GoFundMe here.
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