A little more than two months after her diagnosis, the vaccine concoction from Germany arrived back in New York. By that time, she had been given a dose of an immune checkpoint inhibitor, an immunotherapy drug designed to make her immune cells more effective in fighting cancer. For weekly infusions of the vaccine, her husband, Simon, would drive Blechner from Oceanside to the MSK hospital on Manhattan’s East Side. It was the height of the Covid pandemic, so instead of running errands or visiting friends after dropping her off, he would drive through empty streets and wait back home on Long Island. Blechner would lie in a hospital bed for eight hours while the vaccine coursed through her body, until Simon returned to pick her up.
After nine weeks, she was done and ready for the next step in her treatment: chemotherapy. But chemo was a fiasco. Blechner suffered mightily, with side effects so severe that doctors had to halt treatment. “I got very sick,” she recalled.
“I only had three sessions before they had to stop, and I was in and out of the hospital three or four times. I was down to 90 pounds. I had no appetite. I was constantly nauseous, and my liver was damaged,” she said. “My doctor said to me she never thought she’d see me again.”
By the time she felt strong enough to try again, her doctors felt it would be unsafe to resume. She hoped that stopping early wouldn’t make a difference. But she would have to wait and see.
She tells this story more than six years later: Blechner not only survived longer than anyone expected, she’s still doing well and showing no sign of cancer.
