Real Life My late mum helped me fight cancer
Laura Oakes was determined to follow her mum’s example when she received her own devastating news
Ilistened to the words my mum, Dinny, was saying but I couldn’t take them in. She’d already had breast cancer once and doctors had told her she was better. How could it have come back? It was November 2002, and although I was 19 now, the memory of her initial diagnosis eight years before was still fresh in my mind.
I’d only been 11 at the time, my younger sister Jess was nine and our older sister, Kate, 21. Jess and I, in particular, hadn’t really understood the seriousness of her illness, partly thanks to her amazingly positive attitude from the start.
It had been just the four of us since Mum and Dad divorced five years before, and when she was diagnosed, she promised she wasn’t going to leave us. Rather than letting cancer rule her life, she got on with things in the best way she knew how
– running her own shop, working for the local radio station and looking after us three girls. And although she must have had days when she felt utterly exhausted and sick from treatment, she rarely let us see it.
In the years that followed, Mum had regular treatment, lost her hair and underwent a double mastectomy – and then, eventually, she was told there was no sign of cancer left.
Precious years
But now, it was back, and this time doctors told her that she only had one year left to live.
Most people would have given up and let grief and fear consume them, but Mum just shook her head and told us she wasn’t going anywhere.
And, sure enough, she stayed true to her word. She was still with us later that year when Kate had her daughter Mia, and I’d never seen Mum so happy, holding her first grandchild.
In fact being ‘Nonna’, as she was known, gave her a new lease of life, and she loved looking after Mia and, later, Elliot, whenever she could. As she played with Mia on the floor, or rocked her to sleep, you’d never have known that Mum was so ill.
She was thrilled when I brought my new partner, Michael, home to meet her, too. She loved being with her family and seeing it grow. When another year passed, and then another and another, we started to believe that Mum was reigning victorious over her cancer.
But it was a false sense of security because in 2013 she started feeling unstable on her feet and kept falling over. And, to our horror, tests revealed the cancer had now spread to her brain.
My sisters and I were distraught, but despite the terrible news, Mum still didn’t let it get her down, determined to live as much of her life as possible. She just didn’t want to waste a second of time wallowing or feeling sorry for herself.
She did charity talks and volunteered to read to blind people. And when Michael and I got married in September 2014, although she was struggling that day, Mum looked beautiful in a red
‘SHE DIDN’T WASTE A SECOND’