Fighting Through Adversity

Sandra Kivell’s Story

By the Kivell Family

At aged 51, Hamilton mother of two Sandra Kivell received the shocking diagnosis of a glioblastoma, a grade 4 malignant brain tumour. With her family rallying around her, Sandra took a pro-active approach to her treatment, supplementing the standard radiation and chemotherapy with a ketogenic diet, daily exercise and complementary medications. Her positive attitude has helped her come through the difficult times and she is now back to enjoying a normal life with family and friends.

Sandra was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, where she grew up attending Hillcrest High School. Married to Pete, the couple have two children, Jana and Brad, who also live in Hamilton.

On Father’s Day in 2021, completely without warning, Sandra had a seizure at home which lasted twenty minutes. Pete and Jana found her unconscious on the floor and called an ambulance. She was taken to hospital and following several tests, scans, and a biopsy, the doctors informed Sandra that she had a grade 4 brain tumour called a glioblastoma.

Following her diagnosis, Sandra was told of the negative stigma around glioblastoma and its dire prognosis. She and her family were in disbelief, however anyone that knows Sandra will be aware that she is incredibly strong-minded. She refused to let the diagnosis control her and was prepared to do whatever it took to overcome it. She said this was her only option.

Immediately Sandra’s family began researching every oncologist in New Zealand, as well as existing and emerging treatments available both here and abroad. Coincidentally, Pete had a friend who had been diagnosed with a glioblastoma over twenty years ago. He was given a poor prognosis, and is now married with children and living a normal life.

Sandra took heart from this. Her reaction was: “If other people can do it, why not me? After all, people are not statistics, and there are always outliers in statistics anyway.”

In October 2021, Sandra began treatment. She chose to pursue a holistic approach - including a ketogenic diet, aspirin, metformin and CBD oil - to complement the standard treatment of daily chemotherapy and radiation.

In addition, she underwent Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) therapy to help focus her mind on overcoming the diagnosis and she made sure she went for a walk every day. In the space of a few weeks Sandra went from being someone who barely took Panadol to being prescribed over twenty pills a day. It was a bit of a change for her to say the least!

Despite the mental, physical, and emotional challenges that came with both the diagnosis and the treatment, Sandra continued to battle on through her journey. There were days where she spent most of the day sleeping or barely ate anything because she simply couldn’t. Some days it felt like the road was endless.

Sandra became uncoordinated on her left side, a side effect of the radiation. This made doing simple tasks difficult. The ketogenic diet was also incredibly challenging for her, due to the high ketone levels making her feel nauseous in conjunction with the chemotherapy and radiation.

Every week day Sandra travelled from Hamilton to Auckland for her radiation treatment, which took a toll on its own. This also took place during the COVID-19 lockdowns, so she had to endure weekly COVID tests just to get through the Auckland border restrictions. Despite all of this, Sandra still followed the treatment plan, continuing on her ketogenic diet, walking every day and listening to her CD every afternoon (part of her NLP therapy).

One thing that helped Sandra during these tough times was hearing stories of other people who had successfully overcome their cancer diagnosis, even when they were told it wasn’t likely. Each day, Jana would read her positive stories and things that she could share to give her mother hope. This was a way of supporting Sandra, giving her the knowledge that people do overcome this and suggesting why can’t she be one of them? It was this kind of support from Sandra’s family and friends that helped her significantly.

In 2022, Sandra had a scan post-radiation and chemotherapy to see how the tumour had responded to the treatment. Although everyone was hopeful that it was just gone, the scans revealed that the tumour was still there. Despite the lengthy journey Sandra had already been on, it was not over yet. Following this, Sandra moved onto a new treatment regime - infusions of Avastin and irinotecan every two weeks - that she also receives in Auckland.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. Things could be worse, so why waste time and energy dwelling on negativity?”
~ Sandra Kivell

Within one week of starting on the new treatment, the change was incredible! Sandra’s family noticed she was much more energetic and more like her normal self almost immediately. Sandra continues to have this treatment every fortnight.

Additionally, since starting on Avastin and irinotecan, Sandra was able to come off the ketogenic diet and move to a normal, healthy diet. Each week she continued to improve, her personality normalised, and she had much more energy physically. Just a few months after starting this new treatment, Sandra was declared in remission. The best news ever!

Sandra is now back to living a normal life. She still can’t drive for a few more years and is recovering from the mental fatigue associated with going through such a journey, however she is in good health. She continues to follow a healthy diet with low refined sugar and walks most days.

The way Sandra handled her diagnosis and treatment is a true testament to her character. One thing she has learned from her diagnosis is “don’t sweat the small stuff”. Things could be worse, so why waste time and energy dwelling on negativity?

By definition, there is no such thing as false hope. Miracles happen every day. Sandra hopes that her story can give hope to others by knowing that it is possible to overcome a diagnosis like this. If she can do it, why can’t you? She believes that a positive attitude has helped her significantly.

For now, and in the future, Sandra wants to enjoy her life with family and friends. She also can’t wait to drive again, but for now she’s got some pretty good taxi drivers/children…

The Kivell Family
October 2022