You’re never ‘too young for cancer’
The story that might just save your life
We walked through a park, kicking up the autumn leaves under our shoes.
Tania “Tarn” Hilliam looked at me and said: “I’m going to be okay though, eh, Best?”
For the first time in our friendship, I lied: “Of course you are, Best.”
It’s been 33 years of best friendship and “Best” is what we call each other. But that day in April 2019 was the worst. We had just come from Tarn’s doctor’s surgery where her GP clumsily read out her MRI and CT scan results off a computer screen with her back to us.
Tarn, then aged 42, had found out a week earlier she had bowel cancer and today’s appointment was to hear the scan results to see if it had spread.
The GP was muttering about cancer metastasising from the bowel and spots on the liver. We also heard the words lymph nodes. It didn’t sound good. But we weren’t sure.
The GP then rang “someone who might know more” and apologised for not understanding the results. We sat silently, looking at her back, listening to her talk on the phone.
I was on one side of Tarn, squeezing her hand, and her sister, Selena, was on the other doing the same. We wondered if it was normal to hear bad news this way.
We got to Tarn’s house holding the piece of paper with the scan results, still unsure. We had been told it was stage 3 but the piece of paper said stage 4 — the most severe form.
That horrible appointment with her GP was the end of a series of shocking mishaps from medical professionals who, in my opinion, severely dropped the ball for my Best.
In March 2018, Tarn had made a doctor’s appointment after seeing a couple of drops of bright blood on her toilet paper a couple of times.
The GP told her she had a haemorrhoid and gave her a script for cream.
Months went by and Tarn was still getting the odd spot of blood. I told her to go back to the GP urgently. She saw a locum in August 2018 who seemed concerned and made a referral to a specialist. Problem was, that meant a four-month wait.
Worried, in September 2018 she went back to a GP who pressed on her abdomen and weighed her. The GP asked if there was any family history, which there wasn’t, and concluded it was just the haemorrhoid.
Tarn asked about an MRI. But he told her she was too young for cancer and given her family history, she’d be fine. I recall Tarn saying she felt embarrassed about being persistent by asking for an MRI because he patted her back as if to say “you’re being silly”.
Meanwhile, Tarn was losing weight, often was tired, bloated, and her tummy upset. She wondered if she had a milk intolerance so switched to soy. Then she tried a gluten-free diet.
Tarn spent many hours Googling and realised that, unlike haemorrhoids, she had no pain and discomfort. She was fit, healthy and climbing Mauao most days. I remember saying to her “go to the doctor’s and demand to see a specialist”.
In December 2018, the specialist performed a sigmoidoscopy and said it was a haemorrhoid. Tarn queried this and told him she was concerned about her symptoms. He, too, patted her back and reassured her — no family history and you’re too young.
Instead, this specialist put her on a waiting list to have her haemorrhoid banded in four months’ time. In the three weeks leading up to that April 2019 appointment, Tarn would go to her GP every week, asking to be seen earlier — complaining about the vast amounts of blood she was now losing.
The doctors tried to move her appointment forward but couldn’t.
So 14 months after her first doctor’s visit, a tired, weak and worried Tarn gets her second specialist appointment (a different one from the first) and he says: “Hi, so we are banding some haemorrhoids today?”
Tarn told the specialist she didn’t think it was haemorrhoids and rattled off her symptoms.
“I could tell by the look on his face he knew there was something seriously wrong,” Tarn told me.
He did the colonoscopy and Tarn saw a mass immediately on a nearby computer screen.
“I said ‘what’s that?’ and he said ‘I’m sorry, that’s cancer’.”
The tumour was 5.5cm long. Her MRI and CT scan followed in the coming days. Within a week, it was time to go back to her GP and get the results.
The night before that awful results appointment, Tarn said: “Kel, I’m worried the cancer has been busy.”
Deep down she knew her bowel tumour had been in her body too long.
The cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and formed three tumours on her liver’s right lobe. There was a spot on her left lobe too but that ended up being nothing, allowing surgery to go ahead.
She was viewed as lucky because a lot of liver cancer was inoperable and tipped you into terminal territory.
Her oncologist, Will, and bowel surgeon, Janet — who she said were incredible all the way through — told her “we’re going for cure, but we’re not starting from a good place”.
Tarn only heard “we’re going for cure” and from that day she fought. Three months of chemotherapy and that tumour shrank to 2cm.
I would tag-team the chemotherapy trips with her friends, sons, sisters and nieces. Each round took its
toll and to see her suffer was hard. It wasn’t cancer making her sick, it was chemotherapy. But she dug deep and knew it was doing its job.
She went to Auckland Hospital and had a chunk of her liver cut off. It was risky and “marginal” surgery because one tumour was near a main artery.
She spent a month recovering from that before another three months of chemo. With every drop that went in, she’d get sicker, weaker and thinner. She’d just start to feel better and it was time for another round. But she fought. She was going for a cure. Was it all working? Was there to be more bad news?
I remember her friends and family packing the oncologist’s office at the Tauranga Cancer Centre as he delivered the new scan results to Tarn.
The chemo was working. There were happy tears, fist pumps and hugs. The “Mothership” tumour had shrunk so much it couldn’t be seen on a scan (though it was still there). The liver operation was also a success.
But the road to cure had more mountains in the way — radiation in the pelvic area, major bowel surgery (bowel resection and temporary ileostomy) where the tumour was removed and a stoma bag put in place.
Tarn had the bag for five months from January last year before her final surgery in June to “put her bowel back together” and remove the bag.
She’s had two rounds of scans and blood tests and it all looks clear, officially NED (No Evidence of Disease).
I’ve wanted to write about my friend for some time. But I’m scared. She’s not out of the woods. Because her cancer metastasised (spread), there is a 30 to 50 per cent chance she will get it back, likely in two or three years. If still getting clear scans after five years, she’s considered cured.
Her story is one of strength and survival and she’s lucky. But she aims to help others avoid going through what she did. She feels if they had checked for cancer earlier, it wouldn’t have spread. Doctors don’t intentionally dismiss or misdiagnose anyone, but it happens.
Tarn’s message is to be in charge of your body — question and question again. “Fight and ask for nothing but the best,” she says. Push hard and don’t worry about being demanding.
I know now that writing this is not jinxing my Best. It’s my way of being that friend again who can try to help fix things for her.
Turns out I didn’t lie back in April 2019. When I said “you’re going to be okay, Best”, I was telling the truth.
Tania Hilliam has taken her case to ACC, which ruled against any compensation as it didn’t fit the criteria for a treatment injury. She is focusing on a positive mindset and getting healthy but may take the matter further.
I’m going to be okay though?