A mum has defied the odds in an incredible 'miracle' comeback from cancer after being told it was 'incurable'. Lauren Boyle is now in remission after receiving a unique stem cell transplant that she says is a miracle.
The 35-year-old nursing assistant from Tarbolton has turned cancer on its head after doctors feared they had run out of treatment options. But a new £250,000 treatment made available on the NHS has worked wonders with the stem cell transplant known as CAR-T proving effective.
The brave mum-of-two had to spent an entire month confident to a hospital bed after she was left with no immune system following the new treatment, reports the Daily Record. Lauren has opened up on her 'isolation hell' with the mum admitting the gruelling lockdown in a Glasgow hospital left her "losing the will to live."
Lauren said: “It was really hard but I got there. I had to spend four weeks in a room, I wasn’t able to leave at all. I was an emotional wreck by the end of it. I was losing the will to live.
“The room was in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, at one point they feared that I’d have to go Newcastle. It could have been Newcastle for all I knew it literally felt like a 1,000 miles from home.”
Lauren previously told Ayrshire Live how months of back pain was diagnosed as stage 4 Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The former Ayr Hospital NHS worker was given the devastating news in January 2022 with the aggressive cancer spreading to her blood, bones and kidneys.
But now stunned medics have been amazed to find 0 traces of cancer after multiple scans following the CAR-T treatment. The new treatment saw eight stem cells extracted from her and taken to Amsterdam where they were grown in a lab.
Lauren has praised the NHS for giving her access to the costly treatment, with her consultant pushing for the stem cell option.
She added: “It’s been a miracle. My consultant is just so amazed by my progress. Things were looking very bleak in December there. I was being told that there was nothing they could do it and that it was incurable.
“One of my consultants flagged up this treatment and put me forward for it. They sent eight of the stem cells to a lab in Amsterdam, it really is amazing. It just shows that there is hope for people.”
Lauren is now setting her sights on a return to work in the near future after nearly two full years away from the wards.
She added: “I actually cannot wait to get back to work, I know I just need to try and rebuild and get back to normality."
