Belinda has been on the scary journey that is cancer since March 2024. Cancer diagnosis is terrifying enough without the fear of leaving behind two people who rely on you indefinitely. Not only does Belinda have her 11 year old Charlie to care for, but also her sister Cass who is In her 40’s and lives with a permanent brain injury. Being a single mother, and facing chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and ongoing immunotherapy while still trying to financially cover medical expenses , and basic living expenses is truly too hard to comprehend. I was happy to gift them this session to give them a reason to smile again. This is how Belinda’s story began.. On the 11th March I had facial surgery to remove a suspicious lesion on my face. It had been there for atleast 12 months and I have been putting off dealing with it. Always busy with other things. I had also been too worried about what the impact of having it removed would have on my face. Hindsight is amazing and now that seems silly. What I thought would be a two day recovery turned into a week, as my face absolutely blew up. The day after my 50th birthday, the results came back and I was told that it was a rare type of melanoma (desmoplastic), it was 2.5mm in size and the margins were clear but there would need to be more surgery to give wider margins as best practice. And the kicker, I had to immediately have a range of tests to make sure that it hadn’t travelled to my brain. The fear was palpable. What came next was probably the most terrifying couple of days of my life when I really had to think about my own mortality and contemplate making plans that no parent wants to make. I don’t think I slept or thought about anything else. I never realised how quickly the medical system could work in such a circumstance. The very next day, I had CT scans, MRIs and PET scan. All the scans. On the one hour drive home, I was called immediately to say that they had my results and I just knew that couldn’t be good. I was told that there was no melanoma anywhere else in my body. Thank goodness! Then came the deep breath and the… however…. However, you have a large mass in your right breast and in your lymph node and you have breast cancer. What?! They were not related and had the lesion not been removed, I would never have known it was there. Initial results showed multiple lumps measuring a total area of 6x7x5cm. The strangest thing was, that I initially felt so calm and relief. Relief that I didn’t have melanoma in my brain. More tests, biopsies, appointments. My arms were starting to look like punching bags and my veins were not coping. We needed to know the type to determine the treatment. The world moved so fast. Now I truly had lost sight of what sleep looked like and I knew inside that would now evade me for a long time. Belinda had to have chemotherapy before they could operate to reduce the size of the mass. Then surgery.. since then it’s more treatments such as radiation and immunotherapy.. This is what strong and beautiful looks like.. and this is what unconditional love looks like.. a mother fighting hard to stay here for her son. Thanks for letting me tell your story and help create awareness.
