Heinrich a winner in cancer lotto
“IT FELT like I had just won the lotto.”
That was the response from jubilant racehorse trainer Gillian Heinrich yesterday after she received the news every cancer sufferer hopes to hear – she was in the clear.
Heinrich, who won the Order of the Gold Coast for 2007 after becoming the first woman to win a trainers’ premiership at a major racing precinct in Queensland, was diagnosed with bowel cancer on March 3.
The situation was so bad her bowel was completely blocked.
Even when her surgeon, Dr Mark Doudle, cut out the blockage, he couldn’t get around to the other side of her bowel to see if there were any signs of cancer there.
After months of treatment, Heinrich’s surgeon could finally do that yesterday via a colonoscopy and, fortunately for the first lady of Gold Coast racing, it showed she was “completely” clear of bowel cancer.
“I was worried and everybody that gets cancer worries,” said Heinrich, who has been training on the Coast for 30 years and won the city’s biggest race, the Magic Millions 2YO Classic, with Military Rose in 2010.
“I was very nervous and when the surgeon said my bowel was completely clear I was just so relieved.
“It felt like I had just won the lotto.”
Heinrich had hyperthermia therapy – a type of treatment where body tissue is exposed to higher temperatures to kill cancer cells – instead of chemotherapy.