NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WHAS11) – A nationwide drug shortage is making it difficult for people to get a drug normally used to treat cancer in children.
The Food and Drug Administration appears to have found a solution for the shortages of Doxil and Methotrexate by importing or ramping up production of the medicine. But it may be too late for Stephanie Burres.
The pictures inside Burres' home show how she cherishes family. Her daughter Sidney is always smiling in them. She is now two-years-old. In January Stephanie found out she was pregnant again. But soon after came the pain.
"My doctor decided that I had had a miscarriage," Burres remembers. "He wanted to give me the methotrexate injection, which is something that they use for miscarriages or tubal pregnancies to get the body to do what it needs to do."
Methotrexate is also used to treat leukemia in children. The drug faces a critical shortage nationwide. Stephanie turned to her doctor to find it to treat her.
"Him and his staff spent two days combing the community trying to find me some, and they were able to get a little bit, but it was like, can we just get a little bit from here, little bit from there just to get you your one dose," she added. "That's all I needed was one dose."
They never found one, and Stephanie went into surgery, where doctors had to remove one of her Fallopian tubes.
"You go from the ultimate high of being pregnant, to the ultimate low that you're not, and then when the doctor calls me and tells me they can't give me a very inexpensive easy medication to try first, it is a little angering, makes me a little angry," adds Burres.
