Guest blog by: Tzvia Bader founder of TrialJectory
How clinical trials saved my life!
By Tzvia Bader
My name is Tzvia Bader, I’m the CEO and founder of TrialJectory, and a cancer survivor. On Dec 2013 I was diagnosed with Malignant Melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. This came almost 20 years after I lost my mom to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I knew I must win this battle. I have three young daughters at home who need me. I wanted to watch them grow and thrive. Giving up was not an option, sit and wait was not an option, putting my fate in someone else’s hands was not an option.
I started my journey by trying to identify the best doctor and the best treatment for me. Fairly quickly I realized that if I wanted to get the best chance of beating cancer, the most innovative and effective option would be a clinical trial. I also realized that, unfortunately, in terms of finding and understanding my options, very little has changed since my mom’s passing. It’s hard! Nothing out there really helps you identify the right treatment for your specific condition. I spent weeks reading through different websites, nights on clincaltrials.gov. I was having a hard time understanding my options. My original oncologists just spoke to me about the treatment he knew He wasn’t offering to explore newer options. It’s not his fault, he was very busy and I was just another patient of many. I realized that if I wanted to have the best shot at fighting and winning, I have to take matters into my own hands. I change my oncologist and found one that was open to exploring innovative treatments and was able to point to the right trial options.
I started my first trial after my surgeries. It gave me a year of clean scans, and then, as it happens to most of us, cancer came back. I joined a second another trial that gave me an additional six months of clean scans, and then a third one, an aggressive combo of immunotherapy and chemo that SAVED MY LIFE.
I’ve been disease-free for three years and two months now (but who’s counting:)). I feel blessed for being here with my family, seeing my girls grow.
Going through those trials was no picnic, I tell you that. There were side effects of immunotherapy and the targeted drugs I took. But I got excellent care while on the trial that helped me manage and allowed me to be home, to function as a parent, and frankly, as a person, and this is HUGE as you know.
I started TrialJectory to empower other patients like me, like you. To give us access to life-saving treatment. Patients should focus on fighting cancer, not searching for treatments, this is the work of TrialJectory.
I wish us all many years of clean scans and health.
