My name’s Beki, I’m 33 years old, and I live in a newly built home in a beautiful little town called Kangarilla in SA with a population of just a few hundred people.
My partner, Alex, and I have been together for nearly 10 years and together we have two beautiful children; a little boy, Lucas, who is two years old and a 12-year-old daughter, Mia.
I work as a residential youth worker in the child protection sector. It’s a tough gig but very rewarding. I love it. I had a pretty rough teenage life, so I can relate to a lot of these kids and I want to be able to help them see that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that you can break the cycle and turn your life around with the right support and motivation.
It’s for this reason that I’m also sharing the story of my cancer experience, so that other mums who are going through something similar know that they’re not alone and they can get the help they need.
I was recently diagnosed with cancer in February of this year, so things are still fresh.
My symptoms started about two years ago, soon after my son was born. His birth was pretty traumatic, for the both of us, with me losing half of the blood out of my body. I had to have a blood transfusion and spend a few days in hospital. It was horrendous.
So, I obviously didn’t feel myself for quite some time after birth. I had a whole variety of symptoms and I put them down to hormones or something from the birth at first. However, as time went on, I thought, no, this isn’t right, I should be starting to feel better, more like myself, and I wasn’t.
I was nauseous on and off, dizzy, experiencing sudden hot sweats that would leave me literally dripping. Then stabbing pain started in my stomach and I would break out with big random bruises all over my stomach.
After about six months of this I went to the doctor and just said, look, something’s going on. I don’t feel right.
I explained all my symptoms and I am so grateful for her because she didn’t just palm it off and go with the easy option of it being just normal afterbirth stuff. She actually said, alright, let’s start the process of elimination. Let’s send you for some tests and see what you don’t have so we can try and find out what’s going on.
That started an 18-month rollercoaster ride of so many different tests, CT scans, ultrasounds, MRI’s, lots of blood tests, all just to try and figure out what’s going on. But everything came back normal.
That’s when my Doctor referred me to a gastro team and I went to have a colonoscopy and endoscopy done, which is when they found the tumour.
As much as you don’t want to hear that diagnosis, it was nice to know that there was something causing all of those symptoms and that we can now put a plan into place to resolve it, because it has been a long ride on that rollercoaster and I just wanted to get off. The worst thing I felt through this entire journey was how frustrating and terrifying the unknown has been.
