My Partner Has Breast Cancer and She’s an Inspiration

I‘m a very lucky guy.

Cancer sucks. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you twice.

If you have ever had a loved one diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening disease like cancer, you know how it feels.

The feeling of shock. The feeling of “why them?”

However, my partner has taken it in her stride and she’s amazing.

I don’t write a lot of personal content, but I felt inclined to share this.

What is cancer?

Cancer is a group of diseases where some of the body’s cells grow abnormally and divide to grow uncontrollably. It may cause tumours and has the potential to invade and spread to tissue and organs in other parts of the body.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world, with approximately 10 million deaths globally.

Breast cancer occurs breast cells begin to develop and grow abnormally to form a cancerous tumour.

My partner’s diagnosis of breast cancer

We live in New Zealand, and according to the NZ Ministry of Health, Breast cancer is New Zealand’s third most common cancer.

I won’t delve too much into the details of my life, but this back story will provide some context for you.

I’ve been with my partner Melissa since mid-2019. We did break up for about six months but found our way back together.

Late last year, she felt a lump on her right breast.

In the past, my partner’s mum had issues with lumps on her breast, but they were never cancerous. Hence, Melissa was optimistic about these lumps being cysts. Moreover, she turned 40 last year, which is relatively young for somebody to develop breast cancer. Many women with breast cancer are 50 or older.

However, after going through the process with tests, the doctors confirmed that it was breast cancer.

The experience with public health

New Zealand’s public health care system is pretty robust.

The 2021 World Index of Healthcare Innovation rankings rated New Zealand 15th overall in global health, coming 6th in quality.

“New Zealand has achieved universal health coverage through a mostly publicly funded, regionally administered delivery system.” — Gauld, 2020

However, Healthcare in New Zealand is not completely centralised and private health insurance is still available. Though, the private sector is much smaller than public health.

Chemotherapy (or, chemo) is the treatment my partner is receiving for her cancer. It uses drugs injected into a vein to disrupt cell production cycles and target and destroy the cancer cells.

Chemotherapy targets all rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells that are actively dividing and growing. Other body cells such as hair follicles and digestive system cells acquire some damage from the treatment but can generally repair themselves. However, cancer cells cannot repair themselves and hence they’re destroyed.

My partner currently receives two hours of chemo, once a fortnight.

Her experience with the public health system so far has been pretty good.

Initially, before the cancer diagnosis, covid slowed down the process of tests a little bit. However, after the diagnosis, the treatment began really fast.

How she’s handling it is amazing

Melissa has been a very positive and optimistic person since I’ve known her.

She’s always been an inspiration to me. Her positive attitude and general cheerful demeanour is very warm and I was instantly attracted to her.

Obviously, there have been a few tears.

The diagnosis was an emotional time.

According to Southen Cross, when a cancerous lump is found, the 10-year survival rate for breast cancer is 75%. One in four people doesn’t make it.

But, she woke up the next day and wasn’t going to let cancer dictate her life. Her hair started falling out in clumps about two weeks into chemo, and I shaved it off. A strange expererience!

She’s now rocking her wig and she’s beautiful. It’s a similar colour to her natural strawberry blonde colour, so it matches her complexion.

She’s an HR manager and her job requires a lot of her time. The amount of energy she has to get through her day is amazing. She has to go to work and have meetings with various people, and she keeps on smiling.

She does work from home around her chemo. But her day is spent shut up in the home office on Zoom calls. And, she keeps on smiling.

The days after chemo are more fatiguing for her.

The day after chemo, I have to stab her in the abdomen with an injection of immune booster stuff called Pegfilgrastim. It helps to reduce the chance of inflection by stimulating the growth of “healthy” white blood cells.

I was a little nervous doing it at first!

But, I want to do it for her. I’ve tried to be there for her as much as possible — with support, cooking, cleaning, and generally trying to make life easy for her.

Because she’s going to beat cancer, with a smile on her face.

Final Words

I guess I wrote this as a love letter to my partner, even though she’ll probably never read it.

I want her to know that her strength is an inspiration to me.

She’s always wanted to help people, and I just know that her story will be an inspiration to many others going through a similar experience.

Cancer is enough to break many people. But not my Melissa.

Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed the content, you might be interested in reading about how my son’s mother cheated on me on Valentine’s day!

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