navigating life and grateful for hope, support

By Chris Valli

Cancer.

The one word which conjures a plethora of thoughts and experiences for those that have lived with it or have ultimately lost their life to it.

This writer lost his Mum to bowel cancer on November 17, 2004. Losing Mum was hard, real hard. Throw cancer in the mix and seeing the decline of the lady that gave you birth, unconditional love and was there through good or bad, is a journey and then some.

February 4 is World Cancer Day. The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is the global uniting initiative to raise awareness, improve education and catalysing personal, collective and government action.

Started 23 years ago, World Cancer Day has grown into a positive movement for everyone, everywhere to unite under one voice to face off of our greatest medical challenges in history.

Speaking of voice, Blenheim’s Karen McCarthy is ready to tell her own story.

A narrative that has challenged her own well-being and vulnerability.

Karen says she is telling her story now because last year she buried her good friend, Chloe Rarity, during lockdown in August 2021 and memorial service in January 2022 from breast cancer. She was only 32 and left behind two children and a husband. She has also lost two other friends to cancer.

Born in Christchurch, Karen moved to Invercargill when she was 15. A return to Christchurch beckoned with a degree in social work, she moved to Blenheim 12 years ago.

Diagnosed in September 2019 with ‘Stage Three’ Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the cancer tests negative for all three receptors (oestrogen, progesterone and HER2). About 15% of breast cancers are triple negative. The type tends to occur more commonly in pre-menopausal women and people with a faulty BRCA1 gene. New Zealand statistics show that Pacific, Maori and Asian women have a higher incidence of TNBC than Caucasian women.

Karen, 49, was to join the statistics. “I had five tumours which spread into my lymph nodes,” she says.

An operation ensued on April 7 2020, where under Covid protocol; she got dropped off by her partner Craig at the door and picked up from the door.

“So they let me out, I had my operation and walked out with my (Pak n Save) drainage bag which I would tie onto my jeans,” she reflects. “They took the drainage out but it was taken out too early and that afternoon I was projectile vomiting and ended up with septicaemia (blood poisoning) and placed back in the hospital and the only one there for about 10 days.”

In May 2019 her own Dad, who was a nurse, was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumour (most aggressive) where she says doctors gave him five weeks to live.

“When he was diagnosed he knew what was coming. They removed the tumour but couldn’t get it all and he survived that. The White Matter Brain Trust (a charitable trust established 2016) granted Dad a wish which was to have a reunion with his eight children and 26 grandchildren at Donegal House in Kaikoura (he was Irish).

The WMBT paid for her sister and husband to fly over from Australia and for my brothers in Auckland. The day we went was the day I found out I had breast cancer. I didn’t tell anybody, it wasn’t about me,” she says.

Her father lived an additional 500 days and her brother did a documentary on him which features on You Tube.

“I had my wig on in some of the footage, I used to hate that wig, I glued it onto my head,” she says.

She has since had a back operation and is due for a liver test in the upcoming weeks.

Karen works as a social worker. Her short-term future is one of hope and optimism. She says having four children and a ‘beautiful grandson’ certainly helps her to fight every day.

“The day I turned up from radiation in 2020 and when my son says to me he was having a baby that was a huge focus. My Dad was very strong. Being part of a Live Strong group in Blenheim helps me to have an extraordinary group of friends.”

“I’m only ready to find myself now. As a social worker, I was a voice for young people, that was my skill but ultimately I lost myself. Cancer is like buying a new car. Everyone has it. Talking certainly helps, I need to carry on and navigate where I need to.”