For ‘princess’ Nina every year is a gift
NINA Lunn speaks to The Mercury while having lunch with her two young sons at a restaurant. The conversation is interjected by her reprimanding them as any mother would to her full-of-energytoddler boys.
Yet she wonders if she will see them grow up. “Each year I get to spend with them is a gift – it’s what keeps me going. They are what’s most important,” she says.
Since being diagnosed with breast cancer last year, 32-year-old Lunn has lost her hair due to chemotherapy, a pregnancy, her breasts and ovaries.
“I battled with losing my hair, I battled with losing my breasts but after losing my ovaries I honestly felt empty… I felt like a shell of the woman I used to be and I still battle with this emotion every day. Some days are better than others and I am learning to accept my situation. People say ‘stay positive’ all the time, but I believe it’s important to mourn the loss of certain feminine qualities.”
The cancer was caught in stage 4, and having spread, Lunn is still undergoing treatment and has come a long way from thinking because she was so young, cancer could not happen to her.
“My experience with being diagnosed is that often what happens next is a whirlwind of referrals, scans, tests and quite honestly you don’t have a moment to breathe. In saying this I was a very impatient patient and pushed for answers, tests, treatments… I didn’t want a moment to breathe, I wanted to get this treated and taken care of at every minute of every day,” she says.
While she says her husband Lloyd “doesn’t quite understand what I go through”, she draws on his strength and credits his ability to put things in perspective, as he helps her through the tribulations.
Nina is now on the fifth line of treatment and has been told her prognosis is poor but she would rather know so she can prepare, especially for her children.
But, she says: “I will continue to do everything I can to overcome this. I believe I will be a miracle one way or another.”
A fighting spirit is why Sharon van Straaten, whose breast cancer was caught at stage 4, outlived the one year life expectancy she was given after diagnosis.
She founded the Durban non-profit organisation Pink Phoenix Cancer Foundation two years after she went into remission.
“This bird (the phoenix) rises from the ashes after it gets burned. Radiation burns you internally and externally, but I, like the Phoenix ambassadors, rise and emerge as beautiful and brave survivors,” she said.
Pink Phoenix gives cancer survivors a platform to tell their stories, which many find cathartic.
To go with the story, Van Straaten arranges designers to bring in stunning dresses, professional hairstylists and make-up artists to bring out the best in the survivors and, photographers to capture the moment.
“The first one reached 175 people. The latest one, Nina Lunn’s, reached 33 000 people and was shared 160 times. The support is overwhelming; people are just so touched and inspired by these stories. The photoshoot is an affirmation, for them not to see themselves as sick or just a cancer patient,” said Van Straaten.