Cervical cancer campaigner Vicky Phelan has revealed she’s been given the go-ahead to book her trip home to Ireland.
n January, Ms Phelan flew to the US to participate in an experimental medical trial in an effort to combat her cancerous tumors.
Yesterday, her doctor said he was delighted by her latest blood test results and said she was free to book a trip home in July to visit her children.
Speaking on Instagram, Ms Phelan said her kids are counting down the days until they can see her again.
“So I am being allowed to come home in July, we still haven’t talked about a timeline because this is my return flight, so I haven’t booked to come back yet,” she said.
“But I think my doctor wants to wait and see how I get on over the next few weeks before he tells me whether I can get home for four weeks or five weeks or six weeks.
“But I’m coming home in early July, I booked my flight, I told my kids, I told my family so they’re counting down the days – as am I.”
She added that she was experiencing no side effects from her latest treatments, and that the levels of CA 125 levels in her blood had dropped. CA 125 tests measure how much of a cancerous antigen protein is in someone’s blood.
“My bloods yesterday show that there was a good drop in the CA125 – which is a level they look for in my bloods which has been fairly steady since I got here,” she said.
“It was quite high when I got here initially, it was nearly 400 and the average is meant to be in the 40s or the 50s, it was very high, very elevated. Within the first couple of weeks it had gone down to around 160, but it kind of had stayed around there, it didn’t really move from that level until yesterday.”
According to her doctor, her CA123 had gone down to 113. She added that it’s: “a really good sign that the infection is not as active in my blood, that’s how they’ve explained it to me”.