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Lindie Liebenberg – Breast Cancer Survivor
I have always taken good care of myself. I exercised, maintained my weight, never smoked, drank socially, kept my gynae appointments and had mammograms done from age 40 every three years, so I was not likely to be a breast cancer candidate, right? Wrong! In January 2019 taking a shower after a Pilatus class, I felt a golf-ball size lump in my left breast in the upper middle section. Painless, but clearly visible. 7 February 2019 After many tests and scans, I was diagnosed with stage 3 left metastatic breast carcinoma cancer Luminal B HER2 negative, hormone sensitive, estrogen and progesterone positive, aggressive with a KI 86% growth rate. It…
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But I don’t want to go there…
Where is there? It’s the future, even just a few weeks ahead gives me palpitations. My husband I had a feedback session with my daughter’s psychologist this week. She was talking about Arabella’s schooling and how there’s a good high school called bla bla in bla bla near where we live….it was only chit chat but I secretly sat there wanting to cry. I cannot deal with the future because, I am scared I may not be there and I have worked so hard to live in the present moment, but that doesn’t mean that the future doesn’t pop up though! I had to calm my thoughts and recenter –…
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What’s stopping you?
I used to live in past and worry about the future all the while missing out on the present. We have heard it before life changing events can change our perspectives and I for one, learnt about gratitude and to focus on today. In fact the future terrifies me now so much that I rarely go into that territory! As for the past, well what can I change? Nothing, so why bother. I have dealt with certain traumas and accepted them for what they are. I am sure on a subconscious level, things still lurk about but I can’t control that. Life has become so much lighter, stress has been…
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What has been your journey to today?
I faced death right in the eye on the 8th August 2019 when I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer which had mestastisized to my liver (& at the time we thought the lung also but luckily it hadn’t), time froze & I remember almost leaving my body. It still haunts me to this day, the surreal feeling of that news because let’s face it, the mention of stage 4 to someone that knew nothing about cancer was not good. The mind only goes in one direction. How did this happen? I’m a mom. I can’t die. My child. Absolute panic beyond words. But somehow, I got myself together…
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Life as I currently know it
I have not updated in like forever ( I say that on every post!) and they’re always on my Instagram stories so some of you miss them! Quick recap for those who don’t know me that well. I had a recurrence of colon/bowel cancer mets in my liver October 2021. A 3cm lesion was cut out and I went into remission AGAIN! I’m currently on IV Oxaliplatin three weekly. Side effects (I get are neuropathy, nothing cold at all or my digits do all kinds of weird things and my throat closes. Bad nausea and overall exhaustion. I am up and about but I can’t drive until at least day…
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A special message
I just wanted to pop on and send a special message to my friends who are on active treatment or have had treatments/scans delayed, who have had bad news and those who have lost loved ones or are missing someone. I have chatted with several friends over the course of the holidays and while so many are celebrating (rightly so) many people have been scared, sick or broken hearted. These are the people that teach me humility, when I think my life isn’t perfect, one message can bring me back to reality and teach me to appreciate this life. So often I can get swept away with all the things…
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Dawn’s colon cancer story
To think about when my story began, I guess it would have to be New Year’s Eve 2000. I went to a New Year’s Eve party in Connecticut (where I’m from) with my mother and step-father. That night my mom wasn’t feeling well. When I look back at the pictures, I can see that she did not look healthy. After the holiday, Mom saw her primary care physician who treated her for bronchitis and pneumonia. Early February came and her condition did not improve so they sent her to the hospital for x-rays and scans. It turned out that she had small cell lung cancer. Mom hated doctors and was…
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Understanding ‘mets’
When we talk about cancer, we use stages to determine where the cancer cells have traveled. When I was first told that I had cancer, the doctor said I had a tumour in my bowel and the cancer had traveled to my liver and maybe my lung (can’t remember which one now and it hadn’t, thank goodness) so bascially my cancer had mestastasized, quite simply put, it had spread from the primary source (my bowel/colon) through lymphatic nodes and to other organs. So, when people with cancer talk about mets (also known as lesions) or in my case liver mets, they are saying a form of tumour in another organ.…
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Benj’s story
‘Benjamin Anthony Millard, our son, Abigail and Stephanie’s brother, was a husband, stepdad, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend. We all loved him…we all love him. Where do you start a loved one’s cancer story, when the story was so short and the outcome was so poor, but that was Benj’s journey with cancer. So the start, as with every one, is the day Benj discovered he had cancer, and the end came less than eight months later when he lost his life to bowel cancer. Pre-diagnosis So rewind a little, pre-diagnosis, and meet Benj. He was 6’ 2”, he ate healthily and well, he went to the gym every day,…
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Angelique Lynch – Breast Cancer Survivor
We all have to fight for something in our lives. I have always had a fighting spirit and one of my proudest moments was when I achieved by black belt, 2nd Dan in Karate. I also received my Protea colours multiple times and competed at various World Championships. After working in London, U. K. I landed a job at AutoTrader back in South Africa and at the age of 28, having just been selected to be on the company’s Management Development Programme, I was faced with my toughest fight yet. I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Stage 3 HER2+ Breast Cancer. At that moment my life was…
