Treatment

Michaela Cotterill and Maesie-Claire
Meet our ‘Miracle Mother and Baby”; 20 year -old Michaela Cotterill and little Maesie-Claire from the North of England.

Michaela was referred to Weston Park Hospital in a critical condition after the premature birth of Maesie-Clare. “She knew she had to be born”, says Michaela.

“She saved my life by coming early and allowing me to have treatment. I’d got breathing problems and started coughing up blood; no one seemed to know what it was. And it got worse as soon as she was born.”

Michaela had a very rare pregnancy cancer called postpartum choriocarcinoma. It affects 1 in every 50,000 pregnancies. Many doctors will never see a case of this in their careers, so diagnosis is difficult. Michaela’s blood samples were sent to Weston Park Hospital which is one of only 2 specialist centres in England & Wales which screens for and treats pregnancy cancers.

It is diagnosed using a simple blood test on levels of a pregnancy hormone in the blood. Normally this stands at six and most cases of the cancer have a reading of a thousand but Michaela’s was off the scale at three million.

“She is the most seriously ill patient I have seen with this condition in more than 20 years leading the service,” says her Weston Park Hospital Consultant Professor Barry Hancock.

Professor Hancock leads the UK’s Gestational Trophoblastic Tumour service and is a world authority on these cancers.

When he first saw Michaela she was already in a critical condition. She had over a hundred secondary tumours on her lungs and treating them would worsen her breathing problems as the chemotherapy began breaking the metastases down.

Michaela was immediately transferred to a high dependency unit. Professor Hancock was at her bedside for four days and nights with a team of doctors trying to keep her breathing as the treatment started to clear the tumours from her womb and lungs.

Now Michaela is coming to the end of her treatment and Professor Hancock calls Michaela his “Star”. She can’t remember the first 5 weeks of Maesie-Claire’s life and says the oxygen she was given must have breathed for her. More recently she has been able to have Maesie-Claire and members of her family with her throughout her remaining chemotherapy and she is making up for lost time.

Today she can look forward to a complete recovery and a full life with Maesie-Claire who was unaffected by the cancer. They are truly a miracle mum and baby thanks to Weston Park Hospital.