What ‘Daffodil Day’ means to Louise and David each year!
As most of you know, Daffodil Day was just a few days ago. A day that’s all about flagging a disease that seems to affect so many of us in one way or another, CANCER! But what if you were diagnosed with it in your early twenties, when your life is just starting out?
Throughout the last two years, I have been so inspired by watching my friend Louise, who I have known for over a decade, so gracefully pick herself up from her battle with Cancer. Louise’s journey started in 2016 when she was originally diagnosed with Lymphoma after her doctors carried out a blood test in response to her feeling “a little bit under the weather” for a while. As Louise remembers, this diagnosis then brought on quite a process during a “pretty awful week” as she was initially bounced back and forth between having all types of scans and doctor’s visits over the Easter long weekend. Then suddenly, on the first of April it was confirmed that Louise had ‘Hodgkins Lymphoma Stage 2′ and needed Chemotherapy and RadiationTherapy immediately.
In general terms, ‘Lymphoma’ is a cancer of the lymphatic system, the system that involves your blood stream. As Louise further explains, her specific type is known as ‘Hodgkins Lymphoma Stage 2’, meaning that doctors discovered cancerous nodules in her neck, chest and right armpit.
So, once she was officially diagnosed, Louise, her loved ones and her doctors at Nepean Cancer Care, got started immediately on their ‘attack plan’. This plan involved having eight rounds of intense Chemotherapy over a sixteen week period followed by rounds of Radiotherapy immediately straight after. For Louise, this process of having Chemotherapy wasn’t as bad as she thought.
In amongst all of her treatment, due to her age, Louise decided to get some eggs frozen as a precaution. For Louise, this was a much worse experience than having chemotherapy itself. However, as Louise graciously explains, despite all of this, at the end of the day she was lucky enough to have an amazing network of both family and friends around her as well as “an amazing partner (David) who supported her both financially as well as emotionally.”, while he was dealing with his own loss of his father who passed away of Cancer just months earlier.
A couple of years on, and I could not be more inspired by Louise’s amazing willpower. Both she and Dave are the ultimate example of taking a huge experience like dealing with Cancer and amazingly turning the experience into something they can use to the world’s advantage. As Louise describes it, she “now realises what is important in life” and is fulfilling her desire to help people. Louise currently works as a disability support worker and couldn’t be happier with her current quality of life. They both now own their first home and have two extremely cute Dalmatian puppies plus one very cheeky bird!
Clearly, when looking at amazing stories such as Louise’s, we are able to see how important ‘cancer care’ charities and groups really are to our community. As Louise explains ‘If it wasn’t for their help she wouldn’t be here today’. So if you are wanting to support Daffodil Day this year you still have time to donate to The Cancer Council so you can help make stories like Louise’s a reality for others in our community.