My friend Caroline Cornor believes the
best thing for her to do after kicking cancer into touch is to, ‘get on with
life and stop dwelling on the past’.
GOING FORWARD: Caroline Cornor is, 'getting
on with life' after cancer and enjoying being a member of the Dargaville community, especially the Methodist Church.
Caroline tells her story because she champions the BreastScreen Aotearoa
mammogram programme for revealing a pin-head sized aggressive tumour, despite
BreastScreen’s usual disclaimer, giving women no guarantees of doing so.
She also wants to alay womens' fears about the disease as much as possible.
It all started when she went for her
two-yearly mammogram - her last under the free screening system, at the mobile unit
visiting Dargaville, on New Zealand’s Northland west coast.About a fortnight later, BreastScreen rang her to say something on the mammogram needed further investigation.
“They wanted me to go to the breast centre in Whangarei. Another mammogram was done and I waited while it was being read. They said there was something there but they were unsure as to what it was.”
Next, a biopsy was taken that same day, which involved breast punctures.
“It was uncomfortable but not unbearable
and I have a fairly high pain threshold. You could say it definitely stung but
I was not in a lot of pain and no, I wasn’t afraid,” Caroline says.
She waited up to a fortnight again, for
the biopsy result, which came back positive for cancer.
“I still wasn’t afraid, as I’m a fairly
pragmatic person – what will be, will be.”
At that time, Caroline was told she needed
to consult a surgeon and luckily, because of medical insurance, she was given
a list of private surgeons she could choose from and she chose a woman who was
born not far from where Caroline grew up.
“I spoke to
another public hospital surgeon first and she talked me through it – telling me what
might happen. She said, ‘if I were you, I would have a full mastectomy on the
affected side’.
Caroline then attended an appointment with
the private surgeon and during the consultation, this one also
advised her to have the same procedure.
Health professionals told Caroline, then in her late 60s, the tumour was very small, it was a ‘young’ woman’s
cancer and very aggressive.
“I have strong
faith and I’ve been a member of the Methodist Church since birth.” she says.
The fortunate thing for Caroline, if
it wasn’t for the original BreastScreen mammogram, it could have escaped into her lymph nodes.
A special x-ray in Auckland, showed no node
involvement, which was a relief.
“Knowing that, I felt quite confident and
comfortable that following the surgery, it would all be gone.”
Caroline was offered the surgery
in about a week from diagnosis, but after getting some advice, she found she would
not reduce her chances by putting it off and she elected to wait a month, to
travel to see her children and grandchildren, in other parts of New
Zealand.
On her return and before the
surgery, she attended an oncology specialist, who explained the treatment
following surgery and tests also found she was a good candidate for the cancer
protein-inhibiting drug, herceptin.
She had the surgery in early December,
2015, followed by a course of six, three-weekly chemotherapy sessions, with
herceptin. The herceptin application continued throughout 2016.
“I never thought I needed or wanted breast
screening, because I’ve been fit and healthy all my life, except for coughs and
colds. But now, I would definitely tell women to stop being scared of
mammograms and stop scaring each other, telling stories about it being
painful,” Caroline stresses.
She says it may be a little uncomfortable
for some, but everyone is different.
“It is done for a good reason and well
outweighs the alternative outcome. Because if this tiny tumour had not been
picked up, I may not be here now.”
Her advice for anyone finding themselves
in the same position:
“Take all the advice of the doctors and
surgeons, in the public and private hospitals as they come up with the same
answers.
And in Caroline’s experience, the public health
professionals have as much access to state-of-the-art processess as their
private counterparts. It’s just that the public workloads are greater.
Caroline is very positive when talking
about the chemotherapy process.
Once again, everyone responds to these
drugs differently but there are drugs given to people to combat any digestive
challenges, which some can experience but not everybody.
“Some people don’t have any reaction to
chemotherapy at all but I did have some challenges with keeping foods and
liquids down after the second and third applications – but I found it was very
much trial and error and I felt within myself, it’s like my brain was having an
affect on my digestion.”
One doctor did tell Caroline some people
have a centre in their brain that rejects medications.
Her family were proactive in assisting her
to get on top of it, with one daughter researching the internet and another
enquiring about public funding for help.
Her brother came and stayed for a few
months, making sure she ate and drank.
She did have a couple of stays in hospital
just to ensure her fluid levels were kept up and a blood transfusion was needed
after the third chemotherapy session, when her platelets dropped too low.
Caroline also got a touch of pneumonia
after the fourth application.
Due to the side effects, it was decided to
abandon the fifth and sixth chemo treatments.
But even after all this, she says she
would have rather gone through these difficulties, than not having the treatment.
Some people avoid cancer patients, because of awkwardness.
But Caroline encourages people to visit
them.
Both in hospital and at home, people popping in to see her and asking after her, was a great morale booster.
“I don’t know if it was my own positivity
that brought people in, or what but it was great to see them,” she says.
She is realistic about cancer generally
and says no one gets an absolute assurance with the disease.
But she has been told, specialists don’t
expect to see her again and to go on with her life.
By December 2017, it will be two years
since the cancer was first found.
SIDE
BAR
Caroline’s view on positivity, how to keep
your strength up and getting plenty of rest, while going through treatments:
·
Some people may need help
with showering, housework and meal preparation – because of tiredness
·
Try foods you usually
like as you have to eat and drink. Try to keep your diet as balanced as
possible.
·
Also, just get on with
your life and try not to dwell on the past.
The Cancer Society says, 60 people a day in New Zealand, will hear the words 'you have cancer'.
