Woman says social media crucial in fight against cancer
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For New York City teacher Kristen McRedmond, social media wasn’t just a way to distract herself from cancer treatment — it may have saved her life.
McRedmond, who works at Avenues, the elite Chelsea private school, was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer in 2012.
“I was under the impression I had one tumor, and that was it,” McRedmond, a 37-year-old Meatpacking District resident, tells The Post. “They wound up finding spots all over.”
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She spent four years in and out of remission before things got worse in August.
“I got out of bed and fell to my side — my toes were numb, and fluid wasn’t moving through my body. My legs were five times their normal size,” she says. At that point, she’d exhausted her treatment options — chemo was no longer effective; her cancer didn’t respond to the drugs she tried.
Her only hope was to get her hands on an IV medication being tested at some hospitals on breast-cancer patients that her doctors hoped could treat her rare type of cancer.
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The only problem: Her insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment, and getting on a clinical trial would take more time than she had.
She estimates the medication itself would cost $50,000; any scans, bloodwork and additional treatment required would be extra.