Lyn

15 May 1950 – 22 June 2010

BEGINNING OF JOURNEY

In 2002 I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer after struggling with a bad back for some months. I had a lump in my breast since a series of breast abscesses while feeding my youngest daughter, but didn’t associate the two. One day I was managing a company having a happy life with some back pain and the next week I was dashing off to the radiotherapy unit in Townsville to try to arrest the breast cancer in my spine that wanted me in a wheel chair.

I had CFC and andermyocyne {or something like that} and then a mastectomy on 18/3/03. The surgery was the very lowest point and I cannot describe the joy I would have felt if just one single soul who had been down that path had come to the hospital. I had my phone in so that helped. I then was given a course of Taxol which made my foot go flappy and I was back in hospital while ‘A Current Affair’ got hold of the story and through the group I was interviewed. My radiotherapist has said he wanted me to have radiotherapy on my breast area in order to stop the cancer coming back. I was on the waiting list but it was 12 weeks, so I wrote to the minister. Apparently this is a really good thing to do and they stir up all those people in the department you need help with. The Minister looked at my case and then asked my Radiologist to ring me and tell me that I was terminal. He was pretty embarrassed because we both knew this. This was treatment that would hopefully make it all less rotten later on. My Dr kept saying ‘you do know you are terminal’ and I kept saying ‘yes but this will help won’t it?’

Bad bad thing.

I went to Townsville the week after I wrote to the Minister and was on the telly. Some poor people who could/would not write may have died shortly after in their beds. I never wished to shove myself up the list. I only wanted to help those in need of radiotherapy and I was very aware that the treatment for me was not a life saving one. At this point the fact that I was metastatic and unsaveable was shoved down my throat.

I had 4 weeks in Townsville for the 2nd radio on my chest area but apart from that I have had no time off work since the first episode. I get tired a bit but have been able to cut my morph to between ½ and nothing in the last year. I was given 2 years so the clock ticked to Nov 2004. I still work full time and average 48 hours per week. I have been overseas and that was a breeze for me and Bob and I also make a point of travelling a bit with work.

If my story is being read by any newly diagnosed people then I would shout scream and shake you all into looking at the big picture. This is not the end, it is just the next bit.

ABOUT ME

I do feel that the more power I give this thing the stronger it will grow. I want this story to be about me and not my cancer. I have 6 children, 5 girls and a boy, and no grandchildren yet despite my none too subtle hints in that direction.

My husband Bob and I run a business selling equipment to the local mining and sugar industries. I enjoy any form of craft, sewing, painting, writing, in fact anything where you have something at the end for all your work. I also love antique furniture and have restored some great pieces.

Until my job swallowed up my days I was active in the community and as my last child has left home I hope to get back into this. My wonderful family have been so supportive, and my husband is a gem.

Update July 2007

Best news is that I am still here and we got 2 grandsons 2 years ago. Very blessed as one was an IVF baby. Then in the last 3 months we have got another 2 grandsons and heard that yet another IVF blessing is due here in December.

At the start of this journey I vowed I would never change anything because I had breast cancer.

We had our business so I worked and worked and worked. Woke up one morning with two grandsons and wanting to spend time with them. I had a total life changing moment when I realised that my promise to not let the breast cancer change my life had backfired. I needed to think about my life if I had not gotten breast cancer. We would have moved on. Our business was worth money and we would have sold it. We would have enjoyed our time more. We did all that.

We holiday and we spend time with the kids and where ever we want. We might be spending their inheritance but they are all big and ugly enough to make their own lives.

he only thing of my former life I have clung to is an interest for my husband.

I know I will not be there for him in his later years so I have encouraged him to establish another business. One that requires him to be there when he can and absent when he cannot.

All done and dusted. I know I am so lucky to be able to lead this life.

TRIBUTE TO LYN

Lyn joined our group in January 2003, and stayed a member of the group until her death in 2010.

Lyn wrote her own funeral eulogy, which her family have generously shared with us, and this is what she said about the group:

“I was given the details of a group for women with advanced breast cancer. I felt I was just dying and would get a group that would help me with funeral arrangements but No. They shared with me their overseas trips, their chemo, their ups and downs. It gave me immense strength. It gave me this wonderful calm that my sisters had shared. We’d ring in every week, we called ourselves ‘kickarse women’. We travelled the world, changed laws and wrote books. I thank god for my group, they have made me strong during the fight and calm at the end. So many of us will find ourselves faced with cancer during our lives and I cannot stress enough the importance of support and talking to people who are facing the exact same battle as you are. Much love and more power to the wonderful ‘kickarse women’ ”.

Lyn was a gifted writer, and we will be putting more of her work on the site in the near future.

Lyn’s Quilt