Mum defies cancer prognosis to see son turn 13

A woman who feared she would not live to see her son turn 13 after being diagnosed with cancer has defied the prognosis and is looking forward to celebrating his 14th birthday next month.

Jodie Hill, 46, from Wolverhampton, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer, in March 2021 and was told little could be done to save her. "I just thought 'I'm not ready to die'," she said.

Several treatments were tried but proved unsuccessful. Then she was offered a new treatment in August 2023 and has been in remission since October.

Now, as her son's birthday approaches, she says she is pleased to have the chance to spend more time with him.

The diagnosis came after she underwent tests in 2020 in the wake of chest pain.

Initially she was told it looked like she had pulled a muscle but further blood tests and examinations revealed she was "was "severely anaemic" and had symptoms of diabetes.

But the pain got worse.

She noticed that pain in her right shoulder, which had been going on for a few months, had moved to the centre of her back and had become "unbearable".

"By the Christmas Eve, I couldn't drive because of the pain in my back," she said.

"I was so tired, I was literally waking up on a morning, seeing to my son, getting on the settee and sleeping, that was my life."

Jodie said she knew something was wrong when she lost about four stone by early 2021.

A CT scan of her brain, carried out after bulging in her eye emerged, led to the cancer diagnosis.

"I just burst into tears, hysterical, and then stopped and said 'Ok, I've got a 10-year-old. I'm a single mum, I'm not leaving my son without a mum, how do we beat it'?"

Ms Hill said she received five different types of chemotherapy over the following two years as well as a stem cell transplant, but was told her cancer was too aggressive to fully respond to treatment.

"My sister was with me and she asked 'how long will we have with her'?"

"I expected them to say '12 to 18 months', but they said 'two to three months'."

She said she worried she would not make it to Christmas of 2023, or see her son's 13th birthday in the following February, and started to make plans to celebrate early.

In the summer of 2023, Ms Hill was offered belantamab mafodotin, which she was told had a "one in three chance" of working.

It contains an antibody which targets proteins on myeloma cells, and is linked to a chemotherapy drug. The drug is delivered directly to myeloma cells, and once inside them can kill them, according to charity Myeloma UK.

"[Doctors] told me that if the belantamab didn't work I would have two to three months left," Ms Hill said, "but it's more than 12 months down the line and I've proven them wrong."

She said she was also looking forward to her niece's 18th birthday in March, as well as her best friend's wedding in June.

"I have my bad days, but I don't get down very often because it's not worth it," she said.

"You either sink or swim, and if I sink, everyone loses.

"[My son] often asks me 'are you going to die'? And I can't tell him no because I don't know, but all I say is 'I'm doing everything I can not to'."

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