Young Aussie mum Sam Entwisle diagnosed with stage four cancer after giving birth

Days after giving birth, what was meant to be a happy time for Sam turned upside down when she made a startling discovery under her rib cage.

It was meant to be one of the happiest times of new mum Sam Entwisle’s life, but everything was turned upside down when she made a startling discovery under her rib cage.

After giving birth to her third child, a healthy baby boy, last year, the young mum was struck down with excruciating pain, which led to the discovery of two hard lumps in her abdomen.

Devastatingly, a CT scan uncovered a football-sized 21cm tumour on her liver, which had spread from her colon during pregnancy.

Within a couple of days, and several tests later, Sam was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer, with hormones during pregnancy believed to have contributed to the cancer’s rapid spread.

During pregnancy, Sam was found to have a small lesion on her liver, with doctors putting her symptoms down to pregnancy at the time.

The devastating news came after months of hardship for the 33-year-old married mother-of-three, whose family faced bushfires, drought and floods in their rural town of Nabiac, on the NSW Mid North Coast.

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Sam Entwisle, her husband Phill and their three children. Sam was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer last year, shortly after giving birth to their third child. Picture: Supplied

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Following months of natural disasters was the added uncertainty of covid, which saw Sam’s husband, Phill, a commercial airline pilot, stood down from his job.

Just weeks after giving birth, the young mum commenced nine months of chemotherapy, but another devastating blow was yet to come.

“My type of cancer has a mutant gene known as a BRAF and it’s very unlucky to have it,” she told news.com.au.

“It’s one of those things you don’t want to have on top of having cancer.

“It’s where there’s a protein in your cancer that mutates. So essentially, you have a treatment, then it mutates and works out how to work against the treatment and still grow.”

After some success in keeping the cancer at bay, sadly, in January, Sam’s chemotherapy ceased working, but renewed hope came in the form of a lifesaving treatment.

“I had surgery last August where they hoped to cut out the tumour after three months of chemo, but they couldn’t take the tumour because it was too risky,” Sam said.

“We hoped the chemo would shrink the tumour because I need to shrink it to have this surgery.

“The horrible thing is, without surgery, I can’t survive. So I have to be able to get the tumour out and then I know I can beat it.”

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Sam Entwisle’s lifesaving cancer treatment comes at a cost of $17,000 a month. Picture: Supplied

Sam Entwisle, her husband Phill and their three children. Sam was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer last year, shortly after giving birth to her third child. Picture: Supplied

In late February, Sam started on a revolutionary immunotherapy drug, which works to target the mutant BRAF gene.

However, the drug, which is commonly used to treat melanoma patients, comes at a hefty price.

The drug regimen comes at a cost of more than $17,000 a month, adding increased pressure onto the financially-strained family.

In a cruel twist, the treatment would cost significantly less under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme if Sam was a melanoma patient.

“Melanoma patients pay $40 a packet so if they’re on the exact same treatment as me, they’re paying $80 a month and I’m paying $17,000,” she said.

“It’s a specialised treatment and not everybody has access to it. So if you have bowel cancer but don’t have the BRAF gene, you wouldn’t take these tablets.

“The new drug has a 7 per cent more likelihood of helping shrink the tumour.

“That’s what we’re clinging onto, that little bit of hope that that 7 per cent will actually shrink it enough to actually have the surgery take place.”

Fortunately, there are positive signs that the treatment is working.

A fundraiser has been set up to help Sam and her family through her cancer fight. Picture: Supplied

“I’m getting good results and my tumour markers are continuing to go down, so the treatment is effective and it has not spread or progressed,” she said.

An online fundraiser generated $90,000 for the family last year, but with the ongoing cost of treatment, the community is rallying together once again to support Sam’s fight.

Sam hoped that by sharing her story, more people would be aware of the plight faced by many Aussies also battling cancer.

“I would hate to think that somebody in my situation was unable to have these drugs purely because of the financial burden,” she said.

“That’s my biggest fear, that someone could be faced with their chemotherapy no longer working and then not being able to afford the tablet because they have colon cancer, not melanoma. That would be horrific.

“I just think treatments like these should be available to others at no other cost.

“At 33, with three kids under four and a half, and a husband and land that we want to build on, I do have everything to live for and these are the types of drugs that provide people with that hope,” she said.

Donate to help Sam and her family here.