DEIDRE HAWTHORN
DAFFODIL DAY MEANS SO MUCH TO DEIDRE HAWTHORN AS A SYMBOL OF HOPE AND BRIGHTNESS AND FUNDRAISING FOR A CURE. DEIDRE SHARES HER STORY AND HER OWN CANCER BATTLE WITH I WAS born in New South Wales, my father was in the air force so we moved around quite a bit. When he got out, Geelong was my mother’s home town so we moved here. I was seven at the time. They bought their very first home in Corio back in 1968 or 1969. Mum swore she’d never move from there, because in all the years that they moved around, they had never owned a home.
I built a house out in Bannockburn and I lived their for 30 years.
I have one son and three daughters. My partner Collin and I have been together for 14 years and we just moved in together two years back. He has been a great part of the kids’ lives from then.
I ran my own family daycare business from home for 17 years, just finishing up two years ago. That was a huge part of my life, massive. The last two years of my career I won educator of the region, which was just amazing.
I found out that I had cancer towards November of last year. I was diagnosed with two cancers. One was called neuroendocrine cancer, the other is breast cancer.
The hardest part was getting all the kids together to tell them. That was earth-shattering. When it came time to tell them, I couldn’t do it, I just burst into tears. Collin had to do it.
From there we spent a lot of time in the St John of God oncology ward, running tests and many biopsies. I was in there for 12 weeks straight. I had a couple of weeks off after that before surgery, which was two weeks ago.
In four weeks, I start two full months of radiation. After that I’m going on holiday. I don’t know or care where we go, as long as it’s far away from machines that go “bing”.
The ladies at the St John of God oncology ward have made a massive positive impact on this progress. No one knows the depths of dedication from these ladies to make you feel at ease and that it is going to be OK. Sometimes it is the little things like sitting with you and having a cup of tea to make sure you are OK. I cannot thank the ladies enough.
The hardest part of my recovery has been not being able to do the little things that you take for granted, something like picking up my grandkids. After 10 to 15 minutes your energy is gone.
Daffodil Day means so much to me. Daffodils have become such a symbol of hope and brightness and fundraising for a cure. I grew about 150 daffodils and I brought them in to the hospital here to say thank you to everyone for all the hard work that they do.