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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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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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Liver surgery number two!
A routine MRI of my liver on 11th October revealed a 30 x 11 mm lesion (still small) on the remaining anterior (outside) part of my right liver lobe. My previous surgery removed 60% of the right lobe and 10% of the left, as well as my gall bladder. My bloods also 11th showed CEA markers at 3.1, < 2.5 ng/ml being normal. This news has obviously come as a huge shock albeit I was not entirely surprised because stage 4 metastatic cells lay dormant and can often wake up. I am just happy it isn’t on the ‘fresh’ liver! That is why we raise awareness about symptoms and a…
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Chanez’s synovial sarcoma story
Life as I know it – The beginning of 2012 I thought: ‘Why is my leg so painful? Maybe I pulled a muscle while playing hockey, I should probably go to the physio.’ The beginning of 2020 (pre COVID), I thought: ‘I don’t want to die! I don’t want to feel pain! I really don’t want to die!’ These two thoughts seem worlds and years apart but are both related to the same thing, the awful thing I did not see coming – cancer. I was laying in bed one evening in August 2012 when I felt a lump in my left thigh. It was not painful.…
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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…
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Drika Louw – Breast Cancer Survivor
I named my cancer journey the roller coaster as I felt like I was on a roller coaster from the moment it all started. With a roller coaster you have the 4 parts: Being strapped in and waiting (15/05/2017) The climb (26/05/2017) – The longest part of the roller coaster The free fall (26/06/2018) The stopping moment Being strapped in and waiting: The first part of my roller coaster started in the first week of May 2017. Just before my Dad’s 50th birthday. I noticed some small changes and felt a lump in my breast while doing a self-examination. I knew I had a strong family history with…
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Steve Kelly – Breast Cancer Survivor “Everyday is a gift. Live life to the fullest.”
Detection In December 2018 my partner Sandy noticed something unusual in my right breast. There was a lump behind the nipple. The lump was not visible from the outside; however, if you looked carefully, you could see that the nipple was slightly inverted. This was painless, and I did not feel ill. Diagnosis I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Grade 3 Breast Cancer. The lump was a ductal carcinoma, approximately 17mm in diameter, or roughly the size of a marble. This is a common type of breast cancer; the standard international treatment protocols apply. Surgery I had surgery the following week, as the primary treatment. The procedure is known as…
