I’M A SURVIVOR
YOUNG MUM BEATS THE ODDS
THIS time last year Carly Haynes was facing a question no young mother should have to contemplate – how to die well.
Diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, the Terranora woman began chemotherapy on December 23, 2019.
A mother of a seven month and two-and-a-half year old, she had just days earlier been given the devastating news that without treatment she had six months to live and would get to this Christmas – if she was lucky.
She is now no longer terminal after defying all odds, thanks to the team at the Gold Coast Private Hospital, and wants to encourage others to always advocate for yourself and the medical team you deserve.
“I was 36 when I was diagnosed,” Ms Hayne said.
“I had just had a child but it wasn’t unhealthy, there were no glaring signs.”
As a pathology collector, she had always taken a proactive approach to health, with regular checks and blood tests when healthy to ensure she had a baseline on record.
“I had a delayed diagnosis which can happen when you’re younger as bowel cancer is incorrectly considered an older person’s disease,” she said.
“Because I had recently given birth a lot of my symptoms were put down to hormones. It was one night when I was leaning over my daughter’s cot, I thought I was leaning on a toy, but I realised it was a lump in my chest.
“I thought I should look at this.”
The next day Ms Hayne saw a doctor and within 48 hours she had undergone tests that confirmed the young family’s fears.
“I was told I had stage 4 cancer which had spread from my colon to my liver. They said at that stage I had probably had it for 5 to 10 years,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it, that meant I had it in my 20s. I had two pregnancies in that time and it was unnoticed.”
“I was eventually told by my doctor at the time it was inoperable, so my focus was on getting my affairs in order.”
With a background in the medical world Ms Hayne knew some of what she would have to navigate, however it was the weight of the grief of her family that hit her the hardest. “I really felt for my family, it’s you that has the cancer but they do the suffering,’’ she said. “You don’t understand how much people love their kids until you have had your own; so you know your parent’s heartbreak.”
She continued to fight and underwent chemotherapy to reduce the size of the 14 tumours on her liver.
“I went through that and was talking to my doctor at the time, it wasn’t a plan for getting it out of my system. There wasn’t hope in their plan, so I thought this isn’t good enough.
“I don’t want an exit plan, I want vision on how to survive.”
Three months later and against the prognosis, tumours had almost disappeared or significantly shrunk in size. Ms Hayne was filled with a new burst of hope.
“Until that point I had been told that operation was not an option for me but then I found Dr Harald Puhalla.
“He was confident and said we could deal with it and said we could move forward with a liver resection in June.
“Hearing that made so much difference, just to have that fight from your medical team.”
Since the operation Ms Hayne has been given the all clear.
“It’s hard to adjust to. For the first three months you were trying to work out how to die well, and now for the rest of my life I’m trying to work out how to live well.’’
FOR THE FIRST THREE MONTHS YOU WERE TRYING TO WORK OUT HOW TO DIE WELL, AND NOW FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE I’M TRYING TO WORK OUT HOW TO LIVE WELL
CARLY HAYNE