She Was Told She Had Aggressive Breast Cancer. Twenty-Five Years Later, Donna Is Still Here

In early 2001, Donna Rullo was 40 years old when she received news that would completely change her life: she had HER2-positive breast cancer.

At the time, targeted treatments for the disease were not yet available to patients in Australia. For Donna, the diagnosis came with another fear — whether she would live long enough to watch her young son grow up.

She had spent 10 years undergoing IVF before having her son. He was just 12 when she was diagnosed.

“My son’s 12 and he needs me and I want to be here,” Donna recalled, according to ABC News.

Rather than accepting that there were few options available, Donna began looking for another possibility.

She heard that retired oncologist Richard Bell was involved in a clinical trial testing a new drug called trastuzumab. Donna lived on a regional fruit farm and drove five hours to Melbourne to attend one of his lectures.

After that, she kept calling the doctor once a week, determined to find out whether she could take part.

Eventually, she received the phone call she had been waiting for.

Bell told her that she would be patient number one in Australia for the HERA trial.

Donna remembers breaking down in tears.

She underwent chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy before joining the trial, which eventually enrolled more than 5,000 patients across 39 countries.

The study went on to show that one year of trastuzumab significantly improved long-term disease-free survival for people with HER2-positive early breast cancer.

For Donna, however, the experience was never simply about being part of a medical study. It was about having a chance to keep living the life she had imagined with her son.

Twenty-five years later, that son is now 37. He has grown up, married and become a father himself.

Donna has been able to watch all of it happen.

“Life could have completely gone a different way,” she said. “Who knows what could have happened if I didn’t fight to be on that trial.”

Her story also unfolded alongside a major change in access to breast cancer treatment in Australia.

In 2006, trastuzumab was added to Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for patients with HER2-positive early-stage breast cancer. Before that, women who could not access the drug through trials could face treatment costs of between $50,000 and $70,000 a year.

Today, trastuzumab is the most commonly used HER2-targeted therapy in Australia and New Zealand, according to ABC News.

Donna’s story is therefore about more than one diagnosis or one clinical trial. It is about a mother who wanted more time with her child, a decision to keep searching for an opportunity, and the decades of life that followed.

She now encourages people facing uncertain diagnoses to learn as much as they can and to speak up for themselves when they need help.

For Donna, the years since 2001 have brought something she once feared she might never see: her son growing up and starting a family of his own.

Sources: ABC News Australia.