“A breath of fresh air when I was just drowning…. Mater’s Breast Cancer Care team were like that little lifeline… No one realises that you get this whole support team and I never, ever once felt alone.”
These are the heartfelt words of 36-year-old mother of three, wife, businesswoman and Mater breast cancer survivor, Paula.
And this is the incredible power your support during Breast Cancer Awareness Month delivers for patients like Paula.
As a business owner and director of accountancy firm, Paula speaks passionately about the impact of both the practical and psychological support she received during her breast cancer journey at Mater.
“Mater, and the Mater Breast Cancer Care team, they were like that little lifeline,” Paula reflects. “They really were. I don’t know how else to explain it, but they were like the ones that I knew if there was anything I wasn’t sure about, I could ask them. And if they didn’t know the answer, they went and found the answers for me or made what I needed to happen, happen. That’s what you can’t put a price on.
“No one realises that you get this whole support team that I never, ever once felt alone. There were aspects I felt alone, but that’s got nothing to do with Mater or my journey, it was more soul searching on my business and how I was going to redefine that, and how I do my parenting role. In terms of my treatment program, symptom support and all that sort of stuff, Mater were just amazing.
“My family, my friends, my staff, they’ve all banded together—just absolutely amazing people. It’s been such a good experience. Mater, on my last day of chemo I went in there and they had decorated my chemo chair and room, put signs up, I rang the bell and had the kids there too. It’s the little things that make a huge difference.”
It was Christmas Day, 2022, when Paula first noticed a lump in her right breast, having experienced unusual sensitivity for 12-18 months prior.
“I stumbled across a lump that felt like a marble and I was like ‘oh, that’s a bit strange’,” Paula said. “I had no family history that I was aware of at that stage. Potentially, if it wasn’t Christmas time and I wasn’t in my holiday mode and much more relaxed and calmer, there’s a chance I would have thought ‘it’s nothing to worry about, I’ll deal with it later, I’m too busy’.
“So, I’m the biggest advocate now for awareness because it’s not in your face enough, especially for young people. There’s 300-400 women under 40 diagnosed every year so we need more awareness and education on that younger age group.”
Early detection has proven vital for Paula. She was diagnosed with an aggressive, triple negative breast cancer and this year completed five months of chemotherapy, followed by a double mastectomy surgery.
“I’ve had a complete response (to treatment), which is great news, but I do know my journey has not ended. Due to having a genetic mutation and the risk it poses, they will want to remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes by the time I’m 40. But for now, I can breathe a little bit.
“The way I looked at it was I couldn’t control that I had cancer, but I could control how I react to it, and how I was going to let it impact on my life. I made the decision to keep my life as normal as possible. I had a business to run and three children.”
Paula’s husband Lucas, her children Conor, Robbie and Alana, and her employees rallied around her. Her children were there to dance and celebrate when she rang the bell on her final day of chemo treatment at Mater, while the ladies back in her office wore pink each and every Tuesday, the day of her treatments.
“I started documenting my journey in a normal way with jokes and crude humour and all the rest of it, and I had so many people reach out to me,” Paula said. “They thanked me for making it so real—I didn’t sugar coat it or make it out to be worse. It was every day, mundane issues that potentially can arise, to give people a real perspective of a day in the life of a chemo patient.”
Your support directly impacts the journey of patients like Paula.
In addition to the practical and psychological support she received, BCAM funding helps improves the research, education and awareness components Paula is most passionate about.
“Ash (Mater Breast Cancer Care nurse, Ash Mondolo) was the very first person that I saw when I went in after I booked in with Ben (Dr Ben Lancashire)—they were both fantastic,” Paula said.
“Ash was just sensational. We got in there, Ash was there, and she sat down across from me and basically just said ‘women, we’ve gone so far, we’ve caught it early and we’re not dying of breast cancer as much these days. We’ve got so much technology, we’ve got so much medicine, we’ve got so many options, it’s not what it used to be 30, 20 or even 10 years ago.
“She (Ash) was a breath of fresh air when I was just drowning and because she was so positive and also loves a good joke, it just really changed the experience. It became, ‘this is a s—t thing we’ve gotta get done’, but at no stage was there the fear that it wasn’t going to work—do you know what I mean?”
Mater Chicks in Pink was created so that no woman would have to go through breast cancer alone.
With your support, we can help provide personalised and practical support services for women living with breast cancer, fund equipment to improve diagnosis and treatment, plus help enable life-saving medical research to benefit women diagnosed with breast cancer in the future.
