Venetia's story
“I feel enormously grateful to have been given a second chance at life. When you get your diagnosis, you feel like your future’s been taken away from you, but being offered a clinical trial felt like I was getting my future back. It gave me hope.”
Venetia Hill, 67, from Dun Laoghaire in Dublin was on holiday in Italy in May 2024 when she developed a persistent, unexplained cough.
“It reached a point where I couldn’t stop coughing and it actually became embarrassing,” says Venetia. “When it reached a stage where my face was red and bloated, and there were tears in my eyes because I was coughing so much, I knew I had to call a doctor.”
Before she went home, Venetia called her GP back in Dublin and scheduled an appointment for a few days after she returned.
“I told my GP that I had a rotten cough that wasn’t going away, but I didn’t have a temperature, and it didn’t feel like I had an infection. I asked for a referral and was sent for a bronchoscopy that August.”
A few days after the bronchoscopy, Venetia went back to the hospital and was told that she had suspected lung cancer. She was sent for a biopsy to confirm her diagnosis.
“The biopsy confirmed I had stage three non-small-cell lung cancer in my lower left lung,” says Venetia. “I was stunned.
“I was fit, my weight was the same as it was when I was 18. I was absolutely reeling and had to ring my husband, Michael, to tell him the news. Alarm bells just started to go off all over the place, it was horrible.”
At the beginning of October 2024, Venetia went for surgery to remove the tumour in her lung. She started chemotherapy the following December, and it was during this time that Venetia’s oncologist made her aware of a clinical trial that was happening in Tallaght University Hospital and asked her if she might be interested in taking part.
"I immediately said yes to doing a clinical trial. The trial was run by Moderna and was developed from the mRNA vaccine they developed for Covid. A sample of my tumour block was sent to them in America, where they developed a personalised vaccine for me which sought to eradicate any rogue cancer cells that might’ve slipped through the net."
“Some of us received the vaccine, and some of us received a placebo, but I believe I got the vaccine because I always got swelling in my arm after the injection. I started the trial in March 2025, and it ran until December 2025. I had nine injections, and I was on immunotherapy at the same time.
“I was very happy to have completed the clinical trial. One of the very reassuring things about doing a clinical trial is they keep a close eye on you and monitor you.”
Venetia has now moved out of active treatment, is doing well and still goes for regular scans.
“I’ve finished treatment now, and I don’t have the energy I had before, but I do feel terrific – I’m so grateful to be alive,” she says.
Reflecting on her experience and potential risk factors for developing lung cancer, Venetia says she was a smoker for 20 years but gave up smoking 30 years ago. She also grew up in an area where there was a lot of farmland and pesticides were regularly used.
Looking ahead to the future, Venetia says she hopes to go back to work teaching English as a foreign language. Her advice to anyone who has been recently diagnosed with cancer is to stay hopeful and have faith in science.
“The first thing I would say to anyone who has just been diagnosed with cancer is that they should lean into the science, don’t go down internet rabbit holes,” she says. “Cancer care and treatments are so much more optimistic now than they were in the past.”
