I don’t know Demi Pestell, but after a few hours together I feel as if we’re friends. Within a few minutes of meeting, she confides hilarious – and unprintable – secrets about a dreadful ex-boyfriend. Cue much laughter.
Given the fact that I know she has a rare terminal lung cancer, it feels like a terrible cliche to say she is ‘so full of life’. I can’t help but think it though. She’s turned up in a stunning body-con dress and heels while I’m in Saturday jeans and ill-fitting shirt – and I feel as if I’m the one who looks unwell.
Yet three years ago, the 36-year-old former diving instructor from Northampton was effectively handed a death sentence when doctors warned she had just weeks to live. Tumours had spread from her lungs to her liver, bones and brain, and her only hope of survival was taking part in a clinical trial for a new drug.
That drug, called Zykadia, transformed her. She had been wheelchair-bound and suffering daily seizures. Today, although doctors can find ‘no trace’ of cancer in her body, she still, apparently, has it – and it could return at any moment. But she is an outwardly healthy-looking young woman leading a normal life.
It seems like a miracle, but experts have hailed Zykadia as consistently performing such works of magic in similarly bleak cases.
Yet this is where the good news begins to end. The lifeline handed to Demi by Zykadia – proven in trials to prolong life by an average of 16 months – is being denied to other patients in the same position. For the full article click here
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