Logging long hours as a housekeeper at the emergency department of the Halifax Infirmary in spring 2021, Maria Valverde noticed she was having trouble breathing.
The Halifax woman figured the cause might be COVID-19, or maybe it was the personal protective equipment she was wrapped in.
But it was terminal lung cancer.
“I should have died in the fall of 2021, for sure,” she said. “That’s how bad it was. I couldn’t even breathe. I mean, the chemo wasn’t working.”
But her fate changed when she qualified for Tagrisso, a drug that comes with a $13,000 monthly cost.
Valverde’s painting, The Fall of the Empire, is
