{"id":407360,"date":"2026-05-01T21:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/407360\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T21:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:43:09","slug":"broadcaster-mel-homer-shows-no-sign-of-leukemia-nearly-a-year-after-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/407360\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadcaster Mel Homer shows \u2018no sign of leukemia\u2019 nearly a year after diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The diagnosis of the blood and bone marrow cancer came during a routine blood test in early July last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe radio host says she is still weak and is recovering from a rash but is “cancer-free”.<\/p>\n

Homer said she was shocked and showed no symptoms. <\/p>\n

She started aggressive chemotherapy just five days after receiving her diagnosis and went through multiple biopsies and stem cell transplants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t get home again for five and a half weeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver 4 months total in hospital, multiple blood transfusions, 4 aggressive chemo sessions (well 5 if you count the one before my Stem Cell Transplant), 5 (or 6? I\u2019ve lost count) bone marrow biopsies, multiple infections and E.D visits, a couple of leukemia mutations (that swung me into the high risk category), a Stem Cell (bone marrow) Transplant, along with countless other side effects and dramas …<\/p>\n

\u201cSo enjoy your weekend, hug the ones you love, donate blood if you can (I think I used most of nzbloodservice supply up over the past few months! ) and onwards we go! Not dead yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

Homer received a stem cell transplant in late January, thanks to an anonymous donor in France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She said she continues to battle a severely itchy rash as a symptom of Graft v Host disease \u2013 a complication where donor immune cells attack the recipient\u2019s body. <\/p>\n

\u201cI also have practically no immune system and need to get all the baby vaccinations again. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I am very weak and don\u2019t feel that great a lot of the time, BUT I feel better than I did 2 weeks ago and sorry but did I bury the lead? No leukemia!\u201d<\/p>\n

Also known as a bone marrow transplant, stem cell transplants replace unhealthy blood-forming stem cells with healthy ones, often after high-dose chemotherapy or radiation destroys the patient\u2019s own cells, treating cancers and blood disorders.<\/p>\n

\"BreezeBreeze radio host and former Celebrity Island contestant Mel Homer.<\/p>\n

Homer lives in Auckland<\/a> with her husband of 25 years, Andy Pilcher. The couple have three grown-up sons.<\/p>\n

Shortly after her diagnosis, Homer<\/a> said she was \u201cfeeling fighting fit and ready to tackle this head on\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The diagnosis of the blood and bone marrow cancer came during a routine blood test in early July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[58301,74,696,3221,9516,142192,430,796,156,79144,194,37611,29802,25020,3234,209669,11692,111,139,7805,69,1118,4965,418,7806,2737,379],"class_list":["post-407360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-acute","tag-after","tag-announced","tag-battling","tag-broadcaster","tag-cancerfree","tag-celebrities","tag-diagnosis","tag-entertainment","tag-homer","tag-kiwi","tag-leukemia","tag-mel","tag-melanie","tag-months","tag-myeloid","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-radio","tag-shows","tag-sign","tag-star","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}