Breast cancer survivors are exceptional human beings, all with their own incredible stories of strength and survival. Vicki, 41, is one such woman, who received the diagnosis as a new mum in her early 30s and fought against the odds to not only kick cancer’s arse but to conceive and give birth to her second child three years after going into remission … This is her story …
First published October 5, 2017 at whimn.com.au
Newly married and ready to start her family, Vicki, from Ballarat in Victoria, was excited about the future. Despite difficulties conceiving due to polycystic ovaries and endometriosis, the then 31-year-old and her husband, Stewart, were overjoyed to fall pregnant within six months using fertility treatment.
Owing to a traumatic entrance into the world, Vicki’s newborn son, Edward, was rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, where he remained for several weeks. “Once we brought him home we realised he was in quite a lot of discomfort. He was diagnosed with severe reflux, had trouble sleeping and would constantly wake throughout the night in pain.” she says.
“I made some modifications to my diet to ensure I could keep breastfeeding but nothing seemed to help so after five months I sadly made the decision to stop and Eddie was prescribed a special formula.”
‘My breast just felt … different’
It was only after Vicki stopped breastfeeding that she sensed something wasn’t right with her breasts. “My right breast just didn’t feel like it’d returned to normal like the left side, it just felt … different,” she says. “There weren’t any lumps, I didn’t feel unwell, it didn’t feel like a blocked duct or mastitis, it just felt thicker.”
She waited a month or so before approaching her GP to see if things changed but they didn’t. “I felt quite foolish going off to my GP but I felt like I needed to know,” she says.
Vicki’s doctor described the changes as ‘hormonal’ and, due to her age and not long having finished breastfeeding, unlikely to be cancer. “My GP referred me for a mammogram and ultrasound … both tests showed no suspect masses or causes for concern.”
Vicki noticed a change in her breasts after she finished breast feeding. Picture: iStock
But Vicki wasn’t prepared to wait six months – she knew something wasn’t right and was determined to find out sooner rather than later. Returning to her GP, she pushed for a referral to have a biopsy done on her breast.
“Even after being diagnosed, I had medical professionals tell me ‘there’s a fine line between intuition and paranoia’,” she says. “Even now I question whether I was just a highly stressed new mother who was paranoid but who just happened to be right …”
The diagnosis
“The results of the biopsy showed that I had DCIS – Ductal Carcinoma In Situ – a non-invasive breast cancer that is contained within the milk ducts that required a small surgery to excise the area and then some radiation afterwards,” she says.
Eight days after the surgery, and six days before her son’s first Christmas, Vicki got the devastating news that the surgery hadn’t been successful. The surgeon hadn’t been able to get a clear margin of unaffected tissue around the area and discovered that Vicki’s cancer was, in fact, invasive.
“I’d need a mastectomy, there would be chemotherapy and more tests to see if the cancer had spread anywhere else in my body,” she says.
“Before being diagnosed I would have thought that hearing you have cancer would be the worst thing that could happen. But the worst thing for me was finding out you have cancer and not knowing whether its ‘tentacles’ had reached out and grabbed other parts of you as well.”
When the pathology came back, she says it showed the cancer was multi-focal, meaning there was more than one tumour that had ‘seeded’ in her right breast. “The mastectomy removed the cancer and thankfully tests on my left breast showed that the cancer hadn’t spread any further,” she says.
‘Chemo was by far the worst part’
Vicki had always dreamed of having more than one child so on learning that her chemotherapy could result in permanent menopause, she decided to do an IVF cycle before starting her treatment that resulted in the successful freezing of six embryos.
Chemo meant facing IVF for a much-wanted second baby. Photo: Stocksy
“My treatment lasted for around 15 months and involved four rounds of two different types of chemo – one of which left me feeling unbelievably sick for a week after – nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, ulcers, body aches, menopausal symptoms, hair loss, weight gain, fatigue, cognitive impairment and neutropenia,” Vicki explains.
“Chemo was by far the worst part of the experience … I had a full week afterwards where I could do very little. I’d spent the first 10 months of Eddie’s life never being apart from him to then largely having to pass him over to my husband and other family members to care for him, which was incredibly hard.
“Getting to the end of the week after chemo and being able to be a part of his routine again and put him to bed and hold him close became such a special and energising time amidst everything else that was going on.”
Facing her fertility fears
Once treatment had been completed, Vicki was keen to start the process of embryo transfer with her six frozen embryos. “But I was left totally bereft on the day I was to have a transfer to be told that none of the six frozen embryos had survived the thawing process,” she says.
Despite the significant disappointment, Vicki remained determined to conceive. “Luckily, chemo had only put me into temporary menopause but it had taken its toll – it’d effectively ‘aged’ my eggs and so my chances of producing a viable embryo and falling pregnant each month were as low as 5-10 per cent,” she says.
Despite the odds, Vicki and Stewart embarked on round after round of IVF with no success. “After two years of IVF we were financially at the end of the road but we weren’t ready to give up,” she says.
“I underwent more surgery to ensure that there wasn’t any endometriosis impeding the process and from there, because we could no longer afford IVF, I used the same treatment as I had with Eddie and took drugs to help me ovulate. Within two months, I was pregnant.”
Eddie and Baby Alex Photo: Supplied
Vicki says she had a wonderful pregnancy with her second son, Alexander, and the experience was totally different to her first. “It was the best day of my life … to get to have my baby handed to me to cuddle and feed and bond with straight away, it was the greatest feeling,” she says. “And I was able to breast feed until my one boob couldn’t keep up with the demand!”
Eddie is now aged nine, Alex has just turned four years old and Vicki says she couldn’t be happier with her two beautiful children. “They are both so very special to me. Eddie was such a source of comfort to me when I was undergoing treatment and Alex is the baby we are just so fortunate to have,” she says. “I don’t ever forget that – not for a second.”
Eddie and Alex today Photo: Supplied
‘Walking’ into the future
Not only has Vicki survived, she’s thrived and is determined to do everything she can to help other women with breast cancer. As part of a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA), Vicki and her cousin will be travelling to Spain to trek 125km over five days on the Camino, the world-famous pilgrimage trail, in May next year.
She’s aiming to raise over $8000 for the BCNA in their effort to continue the essential support work the organisation provide to people with breast cancer every day.
Vicki, Stewart and Eddie at the MCG in 2010 Photo: Supplied
“I was very fortunate to receive treatment and support free of charge thanks to organisations like BCNA. I want to give back as much as I can so that other people who are also facing a breast cancer diagnosis will receive the same,” she says.
“Walking the Camino de Santiago has been a long-held dream of mine and to be doing it with my cousin, all the while raising money for the BCNA, will be such an amazing experience!”
News Pty Limited Copyright © 2017.