SHENANDOAH, IOWA (KMTV) — The shortage of a vital chemotherapy drug has become a nationwide issue and it's also a problem here, in Shenandoah, Iowa, as the mother of a two-year-old girl is fighting to make sure her daughter can finish treatment.
After months of doctors visits, Linsey Heard was finally told what was wrong with her little girl Liaunna, and not a moment too soon.
"Everything was kind of shutting down in her body, everything was bad and they told us if we would have stayed another day at home, she probably wouldn't have made it through the night,” says Linsey Heard, mother of Lianna.
Liaunna had leukemia and needed to begin treatment immediately.
"I will just remember, it felt like the world stopped.” says Herd. "My son said, I made this cry, you could hear me all the way out in the waiting room."
The treatment largely consisted of monthly chemo sessions, using the drug Vincristine.
It wasn't easy for little Liaunna. she had blood clots, needed blood transfusions, she stopped walking and lost her hair.
But the treatment saved her life, the soon to be three year old is now in remission.
"Through it all, she still smiles, and she still is happy and she just, she's a very big inspiration to me,” says Heard.
Until next May, she still needs monthly treatment. But now a national shortage of Vincristine is leaving Linsey and parents around the country wondering if their kids can finish chemo.
"And if she stopped it, it would just come right back,” says Heard. “Why would companies want to take away a drug that we know is helping our kids, now we got to stress like, what are we going to do."
Well Linsey did do something, reached out to her rep in Congress. That made Congresswoman Cindy Axne to write a bi-partisan letter to Health and Human Services to force attention on the issue and get the two pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and Teva, to get the drug back on the market.
"We've got to make sure our kids our covered during this downturn in production to make sure no child suffers or literally possibly loses their life because of business decisions that apparently in some of these companies, more important than our children's livelihoods,” says Axne.
Linsey isn't just worried about Liaunna, she's now maybe even more worried about all the kids across the us who need the drug to survive.
"I don't want my daughter to deal with not having it, but what about these other kids that are dealing with it as well. The ones that are almost done with treatment, or are starting it or in the middle, it's like all of these kids need it,” says Heard.
