Celebrating 10 years cancer free
TAMARA THORN
Melissa Ward started planning her funeral and writing books full of memories for her children when she found out she had breast cancer. That was 10 years ago. She had more reason than most to celebrate Pink Ribbon Day, in March 2013 - she was given the ‘all-clear’ from the big ‘C’ after first discovering it in October 2007.
‘‘It is quite a big thing for a woman to go through.. and the family, it’s huge,’’ said Ward.
Ward first thought she just had a bruise on her top, left breast.
She said you always hear ad’s on TV that you should do your breast examination to make sure everything’s alright - ‘‘but I didn’t even know how to do that,’’ she said.
‘‘So the next day I was a little bit worried and I rang the doctor because I wanted him to tell me how to do it.
‘‘It was really awkward and I felt really self-conscious,’’ she said.
For someone who hardly ever went to the doctor, this was a big deal.
The doctor did the examination and told her to get checked further. So within a week Ward was getting tests.
‘‘I had biopsies and scans - it was all rolling. I was starting to get a bit freaked out because all I wanted was to learn how to do an examination and now you have me on the death list,’’ she said.
‘‘By the end of December 2007, when they had all the scans, biopsies, mammograms and MRI’S [magnetic resonance imaging], then it came out that I did actually have cancer.’’
Ward said she planned her funeral when she found out, everything from the music to the song she will be taken out to.
‘‘I started writing books for the kids with memories - What they were like as babies and what their birth was like. It was like what would they ask when they got older. ‘‘I cried all the time too.’’ ‘‘At first I opted to just get the lump taken out, but from the Christmas MRI to the scan four weeks later there were already another two lumps. So they went in and did the full mastectomy.’’
After surgery Ward was left with huge scars, something she wanted to make disappear.
‘‘If you think about it, as a female we always have issues with our body and I never really thought much about it, but once you scar it and change a natural part of your body it becomes not yours anymore.
‘‘I was talking to cancer people and they said you can get a tattoo done to make it look like a nipple again so I tried that and it looked hideous, it just wasn’t right.’’
Ward loves big red roses so she came up with a new design to make her body hers again.
‘‘It started with a big red rose, and that will cover the worst of the scarring and when you look in the mirror it just stopped it being breast cancer and made it the end of that chapter.’’
Ward wants to encourage all men and women to get checked out.